Fingers of sunlight grope through somber leaves,
Casting shadows and gold on silent rows
Separating the vanished. A sighing wind grieves
Over the sleepers as flowers, too, doze.
Tautly blue over the black-fenced earth,
A massive sky gapes at the sea of square,
Cool blocks counted as small worth,
Save to serve as clues, though the proclaimed don't care.
A few modest, but others of lavish line and etch,
To inform strollers of a family with means.
Each dumbly seals the fate of the catch,
Snared by the plot where the marker leans.
Monuments for the living or the dead?
They assure breathing friends we shall not forget
These, who made children and money and fell.
We arrange cut rocks to pay memories' debt.