What follows is a Memorial Day poem I wrote driving from home to St. Louis the day my father's tombstone was placed on his grave. He was a Marine in WWII and died the day after Christmas from a seizure suffered the weekend after Thanksgiving leaving behind a wonderful 43 year marriage and four sons.
He never wanted to be thanked for his service; he thought that the three day weekend was the whole point he was doing his job ensuring there would be a place for his future family to live in peace instead of pieces.
Thanks, Dad!
A Chiseled Stone in a Field of Bone
Makes Note of a Soul of Late
Do we mark our hours
on this earth in days and
minutes span through years yet
all that can be chiseled in the face
of standing stone
are birth and death?
From then to then
tell nothing of the man who lays here
amidst these silent stones.
This shorn granite marker of a man
made so many milestones in me.
It's eve-ing Memorial day: when we
salute they that monumentally
changed the world giving their last day
in the service of their country,
for a three day weekend.
The beginning of Summer;
a long springless winter since
we were last here, before
this chiseled stone was made:
I've etched the date in my mind
carving the numbers
12 29 95
between
my own birth and death when
a boy's father was laid to rest.
I can share with you my
silent pride in silent men
on the day the government shut down
still
standing sentinel over
Dad's final at ease
and
I'll tell you of the cool air
that day;
too warm for a coat
too cool without
too shivered to stay
as I dropped my dust
Too scared to leave
as the grave-diggers finished their trade.
I'll mark for you many days with the man
(and he only knew me
less than half his life!)
How many days between his
then to then
would he have etched himself?
None are spoke here.
Father never believed in Forever.
He was born, he lived, he would die,
and nothing more.
Yet
he wanted to be scattered across
a lake from long ago, where he and his boys
would fish beneath the Cascade mountain skies.
The greatest ground
Crane Prairie
to be found
Anywherey
will still be around
one hundred years hence;
his ashes into fish
into ducks...
but here he lay.
Tombstones, headstones, sarcophagi
and nothing in between.
And the stonecutters place his name and
birth and death so even those who mark
their days beyond his time can know
of such a man named Mayo.
Yet people will see this polished rock and read
his name yet will not see
his masonry.
They will not see the Masters he culled
into Misters.
They will not know the maiden he crafted
into Matriarch.
They will not sense the minor he created
into Mayo.
His birth, his name, his death
and nothing more.
Though my dad is duly noted within this ground
I can see the stoneman mad at me
because I have no use for his work.
We all have been made
like bricks are laid
and we stand here today, testimonial.
Here, where he lies, and remember
his word, his wisdom,
his days, his ways.
What can angled granite
hewn and moored upon the grave
convey
of the one below
more than I have had
the grace to know
in the way he had made me to be?
I am the son of Mayo
and I build my day between
birth and death
with the tools his days have given;
His monument is his masonry of me.