Meditations In A Cemetery

DEATH, Grandiosely hackneyed subject, I live in a house one hundred years old Placed in the middle of a cemetery. The cemetery is bothered by mausoleums Where fragments of Greek and Gothic Lie in orderly shame. Slabs and crosses of stone Remain unacquainted with the bones That they must strive to introduce. The trees retain their guiltless sibilants. The trees tell me upon my morning walk: 'In other cemeteries, Shakespeare, Maeterlinck and Shaw Fail to produce the slightest awe In trees that do not create for an audience.' Being finalities, the grass and trees Find no need for rules of etiquette. Delicacy must be effortless Or else it changes to a patched-up dress. But delicate and coarse are words For quickness that tries to linger, And slowness that strives to be fast! Emotions and thoughts are merely The improvisations of motion, And lack a permanent content. An aging tree is wiser Than an aging poet, And death is wiser than both. The scale ascends out of sight And I recall that the morning is light And smaller notes await me. The tomb-stones around my path Have been crisply visited by names To which they bear no relation. Imagine the perturbation Of a stone removed From the comprehension of a mountain And branded with the name of A. Rozinsky! Recollecting journeys of my own, I close my eyes and leave the stone. The names of other men entreat- Slight variations in line Ponderously refusing to resign. Men who will be forgotten Try to hinder the process with stone. Because they dread the affirmation Of ashes undiscovered in wind, I am walking through this cemetery. The old grave-diggers will soon Astonish the earth below this oak. From their faces adjectives have fled, Leaving the essential noun: Leaving also the unwilling frown With which they parley with the earth . . . Death, I must tell you of these things Since you are unaware they exist. You send an efficient servant To the almost unseen fluctuations Of tomb-stones, skulls, and lilies, Reserving your eyes for larger games.