Conrad Geller

Situation

Downstream
Where the river bends and spreads, souls
Stand waiting in various poses, their weak voices
Angry or pitiful, always accusing me.
My Darling, I don't deserve it. My life
Is blameless. Don't I often praise them, succor them,
Pray to the Everlasting to sustain them,
Commit my leavings to the nourishing stream?

The Old North Castle Cemetery

Almost May, but these beeches show nothing,
Only black patterns against the morning blue.
On the wet ground, refuse of last year's green.
New leaves will come, they always do, to say
That everything is normal after all.

Elizabeth Dutscher, here beside her mother
And maybe her father, died at twenty-two
(Her mother lived another thirty years).
You can barely read the names, so if they put
Causes or regrets, all that is lost.

They used the local stone, sandstone or marble,
Chipping and grinding to square the sides and bottom,
Rounding off the top, and made the letters.

Two hundred years, the wrong material.
Granite is the only thing that lasts.