St. Paul's Cemetery

Calmed by the certainty

only the living will leave us here,

we linger a little longer, seek

between their marbled rows

some echo of an answer, what

might foreshadow our own

eternal embrace.

What I read amidst the engraved last dates

is not the legacy of a loved life

as much as the prophecy of

an enduring tumult,

the raw passion of two

souls so entwined

not even death

can break the atomic chain.

Though time will surely erase

the etched endearments,

wear the touching stones to grains

of sand from which they first came,

I sense a certain certainty --

only the living will ever leave them here.

Ken e Bujold

Reviews

[Ken Simm.]

I love walking through ca cemetary. To understand that I am not the only precious life in this world. What did they think of? What did they do? Where did they go?
This is pitch perfect.

[John the Baptist]

Liked the way the ending here reinforced the first line. It is true about the monuments; time and change will gradually wear them away. But where love has been especially strong, maybe the bonds will not be broken when the lights go out.

[FGFRANKLIN]

This reminds me of a grave archaeologists found in Ukraine of a bronze age skeleton couple uncovered in a loving embrace over 3000 years after they were buried. Solomon said love is as strong as death and jealousy as cruel as the grave. He might have underestimated the former. This was a great read, Ken.

[emmajoygreen]

Those words gently remind the living that what is gone is never entirely gone until is - entirely gone. Who knows when that will be, perhaps not even those presently living. You always create logical sensitivity, one just has to think that little more to hold the meaning closer.

'the raw passion of two
souls so entwined
not even death
can break the atomic chain.'

[Ken e Bujold]

logical sensitivity :) why thank you em. such a sweet way of saying, and far superior, to "flint-eyed romantic" or "dogged dog" both of which would also apply, but I am much fonder of your description.