Cemetery Poem by Silberstein

Davis Cemetery September, 2009

This cemetery seems more

a place of life than of death:

the living gather here to say goodbye,

and return in remembrance

until that last return. Meanwhile,

butterflies flitter, birds sing.

A fountain has been added

flowing in four directions

from one container into another,

each one like the rounded hip

of a woman. I see little bumps

like lips separating the flow of water,

sending it swirling up one side

then descending down and around

the small mound on the other,

echoing nature.

In a mountain stream, rocks

spiral the water into figure-eights.

The river does not run straight;

it revolves around its axis.

My body receives creation water

in the spiral flow of connection.

A single drop falling, oscillates

around the axis of its fall in the shape

of a sphere and why not molecules

in the thrust of out-pouring

Something in the body must remember

the primeval water that gave birth to all life,

remember chaos and rhythm,

and just so, the remembrance

of the beloved we have lost

is still part of our body. Water flows:

the blood that connects us to all earth.

In my body, the fountain flows.

And one day my ash will pulse

in the arteries of earth. This place

is more of life than of death.

9-20-09 by Allegra Jostad Silberstein