Locked down, bottled up,
a drive and solitary cemetery stroll
seem good medicine
to soothe a body hungry for air,
busy a mind aching for expanse.
Socially distant in space and time,
I wander alone among silent stones
and gnarly cedars, massaged
by breezes and sunshine,
soft spring grass underfoot.
Below winged soul effigies,
or willow-and-urn
carvings, I read names
and dates, a rollcall of lives
lived and forgotten save for stone.
I stop short at the faded, time-darkened
marble slab of Patty Guard,
dead of smallpox at 37
in 1837, just after her four children
aged 17 years to nine days.
My is breath labored, shallow.
Were kisses, shared meals,
or an embrace fatal? Cold stone
speaks three weeks of terror:
Lorenzo, Thomas, George, an infant.
The inscription seems to weep,
but the tears are mine, arms and legs
heavy, anguish penetrating centuries
to an age before facemasks,
vinyl gloves and vaccines.
Fear of handshakes, kisses or hugs
magnify distances in these COVID days.
Time slows, taunts, thickens,
as shadow contagions of dread
await medicine’s next miracle.
