Mourning Those in my Spoon River Cemetery
Although now romanticized quite a bit in my mind, Edgar Lee Masters still haunts with his collection of epitaphs in Spoon River Anthology. In the Midwest, that quiet time has come where the dark steals away the day before it wants to go. There is too much time to reflect — too much time to ponder about those who have gone before and are now lost to me. Metaphorically I spread my blanket where all of you sleep on the hill. I can touch each of you with gentle questions. You are still thought of — I have not forgotten.
The Cowboy Hat
Cancer, surgery, nursing homes — your medical history was fretted over, worried about, and prayed against. It all happened anyway. Now every instant ticket you scratch is a winner which delights but there aren’t any dirty jokes told which disappoints.
The Dice Game
You were pulled away from your 16-year old son. You were both at such a fragile age. Where your fragility overtook you, your son now walks through his life understanding his.
The Baby Blanket
What would you have become? If you had grown tall. If you were allowed moments of laughter and handstands and stolen licks of frosting from your birthday cakes. Your surviving twin wonders.
The Scrapbook Page
You have been missed for a while now. Your daughters are two confident, shining women making their way in the world with your memory as guidance. Your son was so young when you passed. Can he hear the sound of your memory trying to guide him still?
The Calendar
You aimed to outlive everyone, but in the end even you succumbed. What will the family do now that its matriarch has fallen? Who will take the torch/have the torch thrust upon them/volunteer for the torch? Will you approve?
The Wrench
You are the most recent to become a scar on so many hearts. If you had recognized your last day, would you have handled your time differently? Would your smile have been wider for your son while the two of you worked together on that car?
Back to Topside on the hill
Edgar Lee Masters wrote 245 epitaphs in Spoon River Anthology. Did he find comfort in these thoughts of what the dead may still have to say? If I could hear my loved ones voices again, I would summon them with questions and thoughts. Alas, as Reuben Pantier says in his epitaph, “The eternal silence of you spoke instead.”
