Forever As One They Will Be

An attempt at free verse

In the corner of a vast garden
Grows a grave.
On the grave a tree has dug It's way
deep into the ground.
Hallowed ground to the grave.
The stone engraved long ago stands tall.
Not as tall as the tree
Standing straight as the day
The stone was planted
The same day someone was laid
To rest
Came a seed of a sapling
On the fresh earth of death
Born in the soil of a human's toil
The tree was wild!
Without intention
To disturb the memory of life.

So together they grew
Moss on a stone that was topped by a tree.
A cross
Rooting veins of time
Forgotten
By anyone who might have cared to weed
The seed above a coffin
That grew to be a tree the size of a mountain!
Making no hill.
Leaving the dead to rest still.
Undisturbed
By the roots worming a way
Through soil tilled by man and a tree.
Becoming one.
Composing songs of silent decomposition
Orchestrated in a pit that is a plot
To live!
Intertwined in a ball of life and death.

For more than a century
The stone has stood sentry over a grave that cradles a tree.
And if a storm ever topples
This stone topped by an Orthodox cross,
And the tree
Growing on a grave in a memorial garden.
Or should civilization crumble in time immemorial,
Forever as one they will be.

2022

Author's Note

This grave exists. There is a massive cemetery next to a hospital and in the corner of the Russian Orthodox (coincidence?) area, this huge tree is growing right on top of a an ancient grave. The headstone is perfectly straight up and the hundred foot tree is right on the plot. The Orthodox cross has 3 crosses the bottom one slightly tilted and it looks like a tree. How the root ball hasn't bumped the stone I don't know. And the morbid in me wonders what's going on down in the dirt? Every time I see it I ponder on it and last night decided it was time to write about it.

Reviews

[JE Falcon]

There are stranger things in Heaven and earth. ... I think it's how it goes. --- I'm not one to write reviews that criticize, I'm not educated enough for that, or so I been told. LOL, But I will say that I understood what you meant on all counts. As long as you're not going for some sort of award then I don't see a problem. We're here to share.

[William Michael Reeves]

The award would be understanding. The reward would be sharing. The awkward would be criticizing. But since I am a ward of my words my pen will just keep writing forward.

Waiting anxiously to hear what you think of my answers to your questions.

[JE Falcon]

OK, well I will answer with two quotes: "everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” — Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath --- AND --- “If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.” — Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones

[William Michael Reeves]

Not those answers. But thank you for the quotes. The answers to your questions in your poem.

[Relic]

And if a storm ever topples
This stone topped by an Orthodox cross
And the tree
Growing on a grave in a memorial garden.

This is actually an incomplete sentence. You might want to reword it or add a semi-colon after the word garden.

This has a real dark vibe I like. I've seen tree signs and even a bicycle enmeshed in trees but never a tree growing over a tombstone.

Thanks for taking me somewhere I've never been. :)

[William Michael Reeves]

Amazing! I was just stumbling over those very words trying figure out why it wasn't right. I should let a poem dry for awhile before posting. I'll try that. And it's so refreshing to get constructive feedback. Thank you!!! And I'm glad I took you somewhere. What it's all about.

Bill

[Relic]

You're welcome, Bill. I've been posting poems way too early for years. I'm just lucky people like them. haha
Stephen King has said in his book 'on writing' you should let a story sit for a while then get back to it with new eyes. I need to follow his advice. :)

[KATHY SUE SILLS]

Richard, I found myself wandering through the cemetery to that grave with the big, huge tree, and the crosses I felt I could just reach out and touch! You took me on a trip to Russian! This was well written!

[William Michael Reeves]

Thank you Kathy. Cemeteries are beautiful gardens where we mingle with nature for eternity.

Bill

[KATHY SUE SILLS]

My pleasure, Bill!