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In An Old Cemetery, Sharon, Ct.
by Ken HarnischThe stones abutting the graveled road
Are as Frost imagined them. Great gray slabs
Lying on their sides
Cemented in the joints, troweled on
Thickly by those who must have doubted
The ability of ancient poultices to
Keep a thing rooted in its place
The upright stones are bare of words;
Washed by time of all description
Except those of an occasional
Cobb or Braddock or Bates
Who departed this life aged
Anywhere from four to seventy-nine
You tread lightly on the grass
Still far too green for a December day
Thinking the ground was like
A rock back then
When picks and shovels broke
The Earth to lay the coffins
In the days when we had winters
And there was snow
And what spare words were said
Over whose spare graves?
The Earth and sky do
Not divulge the epitaphs
Spoken by the Spartan and the saint
Nor is the grass damp
With the tears which once fell
To the ground beneath your shoes
The trees are like withered hands;
Those with the remains of leaves
Are brown with the droop
Of sleeping, eviscerated bats
You feel the wind on your face;
The transience beneath your feet;
And somewhere in the afternoon
You shudder quietly
For the roads
Untaken, the promises unkept 01/03/2007 Posted on 01/03/2007
Copyright © 2024 Ken Harnisch
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Gabriel Ricard on 01/04/07 at 06:21 PM That's quite an image, man. Wonderfully captured. |
| Posted by Kathleen Wilson on 01/04/07 at 07:45 PM The poem beginning and ending with echoes of Frost--the stones, at first on their sides, and cemented out of insecurity, and then upright stones (the real signal of insecurity--the fragility of life)--the poem strongly built-- the earth tender, where once hard-- rush of the last stanza's images --so fragile and moving--trees (like hands)--beautiful image-- the drooping hands, the wind--all fine in contrast to the stone-- link to the fragile lives and move us with a "shudder". Yes. |
| Posted by Chris Sorrenti on 01/07/07 at 01:49 PM A rich telling Ken in both imagery and message. Reminds me of my own lack of winter here in Ottawa. Great to read you again. |
| Posted by Kate Demeree on 01/08/07 at 04:00 AM I do know how you always manage to do it, but you take us all there with your words to feel the humbleness you yourself feel. You paint a word picture so vivid We can feel the air blow on our cheeks.... WOW |
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