My grandma says in those days,
no one was paid to take care of the cemetery.
The day before Memorial Day,
she and her siblings would pull the weeds
while her father mowed the grass.
The next day, the fresh clippings were sprinkled
on the graves, where the family made new mounds.
Her mother would wrap lucerne from their garden
around wire to make wreaths for the graves --
small purple flowers nestled in green and bound in a loop.
The lucerne and wire would soak overnight,
and then her mother would pin homemade hair pins,
made by my great-grandpa, on the wreaths.
She says they always looked so nice.
But because those were the years
they never took pictures of anything,
I have never seen the clippings, nor the wreaths.
I am left outside, wondering
at the sacredness of memory
and a nostalgia for family members I never knew.
 |
| Lucerne (alfalfa, but my grandma says they called it lucerne) |
No comments:
Post a Comment