Shaker Cemetery
a new poem
Shaker Cemetery
If not for the few stones
cracked into arrowheads
and stumps, the symmetry
would signal the eternal.
After two-hundred years—
two-hundred winters—
what names and dates remain
are faint indentations
the light can barely pronounce.
KILLER LAST LINE!
Your poem and the gravestones whose stories it tells reveal the meagerness of these lives. From what I understand, they lived in small communities amongst themselves, worked hard making simple furniture for which they are famous, and were not allowed to have sex ... not even to procreate. Their religion literally died out because there was no growth from within. That front stone looks like it is protesting in anger.