David K. Leff, Essayist, Poet, Lecturer

Higher Mountains to Climb (poem)

In commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the first ascent of Mt. Everest, May 29, 1953

Ten dead on Everest by mid-May.
Bodies frozen, oxygen starved,
faces sunburned, dreams stillborn.

Lines rivaling DMV on a bad day
or the bank at closing,
the grocery register before a holiday.

Jumbles of oxygen bottles,
ripped tents, broken ladders, cans,
wrappers, and crap pile up in snow.

Muscle, ego, money, and gear
can’t get you where Norgay
buried sweets and Hillary a crucifix.

Tallest but hardly most remote,
wild, or technically difficult,
the name always seduces.

Thirty years after his conquest,
I had a moment with the man who shared
first on the ultimate summit.

Gangling, with a glacially carved,
ruddy face, he smiled warmly.
“Call me Ed,” he said softly.

I imagined a titan in goggles, boots,
and parka, but he might have been happier
with his bees, a smoker and veil.

As if over a pint and shepherd’s pie
at a pub, we talked of building hospitals
and schools for Nepal’s people.

He had higher mountains to climb,
and urged me to come with him,
scaling peaks far above the clouds.

Loquacious Stones: The Dead Speak

Words from the Dead
You don’t need a séance to get a message from beyond. A walk through most cemeteries will do. “Going, but know not where,” reads Phineas G. Wright’s monument, a large granite block incised with his face in a slight frown and eyes suggesting worry. Buried in 1918 in Putnam, Connecticut’s Grove Street Cemetery, he’s dressed in a formal suit, a bald man with a long chin beard. “Gone, but hope not lost,” is a similar but less uncertain message carved into a small, simple brownstone slab memorializing William Allin who died in Windsor in 1701. “Not my will, but thine be done,” reads the great impresario P.T. Barnum’s 1891 marker in Bridgeport’s Mountain Grove Cemetery, perhaps expressing a bit of resistance and resignation. Carved in stone during three different centuries is ambivalence over final departure, probably a common feeling then, now, and for eternity. I can almost hear their voices fading in a last gasp.

Cemeteries are three dimensional storybooks. Sure, they are dominated by stone from humble tablets to grand mausoleums, but they are also filled with words. These are stones that talk. Although most are a sort of account book or registry of names and dates, often with a few clichéd words about mortality and heaven, many contain messages from the dead or a biographical snippet that conjures an image, a wisp of personality, or a moment in history. As time goes on and memories fade, bodies below ground come to matter less than the words above.

Cemeteries may be solemn, somber, even tragic places. They are filled with beautiful sculpture, architecture, and inscribed artwork from colonial death angels to contemporary laser images of everything from boats to animals. But, it’s the words that move me most, that at times almost seem to make the dead come alive. Walk through most cemeteries and you will find poetry, humor, preaching, tales of good deeds and misdeeds, mystery, and history. And you don’t have to adventure far to find wonderful stories literally written in stone. Those below are but a tiny sampling from my small home state of Connecticut. There is so much more to explore, even nearby.

Jackson's Arm (poem)

On the 155th anniversary of America's most famous case of friendly fire

Far from the road, a few clustered trees stand guard
near a single granite marker lying in coarse grass
and clover.  Enclosed by weathered wooden posts
and rails, tiny Ellwood Cemetery has but one burial marked.
Here lies the amputated arm of General Jackson,
shattered by friendly musket fire at dusk.

Bible-spouting, lemon-sucking legend
of Confederate bravery and valor, he grows larger
in death, though remaining as still as a stone wall.
The muscular limb that once fiercely gestured orders
or gave a manly pat now lies a-mouldering, a singular
sacred relic enticing thousands of pilgrims
each summer.  It’s surrounded by a palisade of corn,
a curtain of quiet where birds chirp, insects hum
and human voices are always hushed.