In the Cemetery in Monson

Like Our Town, I see them sitting there

in little folding chairs, a theatrical touch,

the fathers and “belovéd wives of,”

their sons and daughters, agéd parents,

lined up in rows, a dozen or so families buried here,

or gathered around an obelisk pointing skyward,

heavenward, bearing the old names and dates

of those gathered here, sitting there, their hands

folded gently on their laps, conversing, as they always have,

living still, in death, the lives they had

carved out for themselves, here in this place,

this small town branching outward from the little

church where they gathered, gathering even now

as on any other Sunday, gathering to worship,

sup, and talk of crops and quarries,

of passing days and nights, marriages and children,

perpetuity and the prospects of the future,

a future growing older here, here where they gather

even now in death, as in life;

and I wonder what they gave up to stay,

what bigger dreams they abandoned to remain,

and now, long sitting here in passing years,

no longer, even, welcoming neighbors passing, too,

for all have passed and sitting here, gathered,

would they go back for one more day, one last visit,

if they could, as they can, as Wilder penned,

a twelfth birthday, weddings and funerals, birth

and death, or are they content now, content to spend

their days here, this small town here where they lived,

where they live still, dreaming and wondering:

“live people just don’t understand.”