In Memoriam
Another rainy Memorial weekend,
there’s no promise of the sun.
I’m sorry for the folks who’d planned
a little camping fun.
But my task will go forward
with umbrella and raincoat.
I’ll get those graves all covered,
if I have to use a boat.
The first one was for my daddy,
back in nineteen fifty three.
I could not know how many more
family graves I’d live to see.
The next one’s for my young husband.
It was dug in sixty two.
In seventy five my darling mother
died and her grave was brand-new.
Tears for a granddaughter in seventy nine
and for a nephew that year too.
In the year of nineteen eighty
my brother followed those two.
Then we had a short hiatus.
It was not ‘til ninety-four
that another brother was laid there.
Then we counted one grave more.
The next year we gathered once again,
when my second husband died.
He missed the sorrow of ninety-seven,
when it was for his son we cried.
Two more years in nineteen ninety nine
my own son was laid to rest..
“If God is trying me”, I thought,
“I fear I’ll fail this test.”
Then He had pity on us
and it was a full decade
before another grave and in it
my great grandson was laid.
Two brothers lie in other grave-yards,
and their stones I do not see.
I’ve been going to this cemetery
each Memorial week since fifty-three.
There are many friends and in-laws
that I must also remember.
I go the rounds with flowers in May
and with wreaths in cold December.
This poem covers five generations
of at least one family member
who has gone on ahead of us
and we bring flowers to remember.
By: Joyce 5/28/ 11
Copyright © Joyce Johnson | Year Posted 2011
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