“Wandering in Cemeteries” (Riding in Boxcars, 2006) resulted (surprise) from a walk in a cemetery.

When we are young, we think we have an infinite amount of time. Then suddenly, we’re middle-aged and preparing for retirement. Along the way, we waste the days complaining about what is wrong with a world upon which we have the huge great fortune to be granted a few cosmic moments of occupancy. Or, as I saw this weekend on the part of some teenagers, we spend our time living inside smartphones, video games and computers when a startlingly beautiful world lay just outside the door.

In the end, we all wind up in the same place and wonder what happened.

Perhaps it would be worth considering what might be your regrets, before your history is written in stone?



Wandering in Cemeteries

 Monuments to those,

Who spent their lives

Worrying.

Living in comas.

Hidden now

Beneath the covers.

 

Monuments to those

Who raged inanely.

Angry at the weather,

Or the news.

Passions wasted,

On passing storms.

 

Monuments to those

Burning their lives away

In the furnace

Of somedays.

Ashes carefully saved

In time’s vault.

 

Monuments to those

Seeking immortality.

Striving for greatness,

Interrupted in their quest.

Their only mantles,

The first snow.

 

A city of souls,

Filled with regrets.

Unfinished stories,

Written in stone.

Read by those

Wandering in cemeteries