Friday, May 20, 2011
Haiku Friday: Memorials
In the picture, I am at the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial with Bud Welch. He is pointing to the chair which bears the name of his daughter, Julie.
Julie was a translator at the social security office who would have lived but for the fact that she was called to front of the office to help a man, there with his pastor, who did not speak English. She walked to the front, greeted them, and then was killed in an instant.
The memorial in Oklahoma City is powerful and fitting. There is a field full of empty chairs, larger ones for adults, smaller ones for children. Some memorials fit, like this one... and some do not. To me, there are few things sadder than going to a funeral where the eulogy is given by a minister who did not know the person very well, if at all.
Let's haiku about memorials, of any kind-- a funeral, a grave, or a monument like this one.
Here is mine:
Lines of empty chairs
Unevenly spaced, but
The little ones, so sad.
Now it is your turn...
Comments:
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Matthew Whaley, nine,
buried at Bruton Parish,
1705.
Matthew Whaley School,
a gift from Rockefeller,
1929.
buried at Bruton Parish,
1705.
Matthew Whaley School,
a gift from Rockefeller,
1929.
November cold rain
Frank, Anna, Marie and now Ben
McNamara/Lewis
No funeral, please.
Family gathered, words spoken
Numb brother breaks down
Floodgates burst open
Twenty six years of suppressed
grief exposed, laid bare.
Frank, Anna, Marie and now Ben
McNamara/Lewis
No funeral, please.
Family gathered, words spoken
Numb brother breaks down
Floodgates burst open
Twenty six years of suppressed
grief exposed, laid bare.
In grave midst wheat field
Buried near her pinochle partner
Farm wife whispers "adieu."
Marble pretty girl
Six years old forever
All dressed up,nowhere to go.
Buried near her pinochle partner
Farm wife whispers "adieu."
Marble pretty girl
Six years old forever
All dressed up,nowhere to go.
Every year I go back
To the place where she rests
I touch the cold cross and whisper
I'm here, can you hear me?
She never replies
But I hear her.
To the place where she rests
I touch the cold cross and whisper
I'm here, can you hear me?
She never replies
But I hear her.
Rabbie,whence brilliance?
Meagre fed,few books,plow bound,
Roses and poems pen-sprung
I sit in stone tent
Alone in Ayr,and wish you
Were mine,saint and sinner.
Meagre fed,few books,plow bound,
Roses and poems pen-sprung
I sit in stone tent
Alone in Ayr,and wish you
Were mine,saint and sinner.
18,000 men,
Confederates, many teens,
in Hollywood's graves.
[Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia]
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Confederates, many teens,
in Hollywood's graves.
[Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia]
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