Forest Lawn, Hollywood
Dreams some lost world
Long ago, I'll never know
Old stories and old names

Down the years they carry
On to a world those people 
Perhaps would never have
Understood- if they could

Lost stories and lost names
Forgotten and yet resurrected
In the stories passed down in
Years after inaccurate and yet

Not wrong, what those stories
Become of people long gone
The truth lies with the dead
I can't pretend to ever fully

Understand people I never met
She looks out of the photograph
Golden hair and supposed Hollywood
Dreams- is this what it seems?

She was beautiful and lived in
Old LA that much you can say
Even if the mysteries otherwise
Could go on all day and the truth

Of the woman in the photograph
Is one I perhaps don't want to
Know even if I claim I want to
Maybe some truths are best

Left with the dead, because who
Can ever really know what the
Truth of the long dead was? the
Truth behind the photographs

Faded and black and white
Colored in -forgotten places
Nameless people memories
Gone with the dead who sleep

At Forest Lawn under the
Whispering pines in their
Eventide I did not know them
On this side they are just 

Old names and old stories
What were the realities?
Maybe it's better to know 
The fantasies 1930s Hollywood

1940s LA I would love to have
Known it for a day like the
Woman in the photograph
My long dead relative

As I sit here trying to understand
A world I'll never know
And someone I can never meet
Except in fantasy which maybe
Is better than reality-

The reference to Forest Lawn in this poem is to the cemetery in LA(actually in the suburb of Glendale) Forest Lawn Glendale