Nathaniel's Grave

Columbia lie sleeping as I walked alone up to the hill that overlooked the town where tombstones tilted, lost and overgrown, among forgotten flowers, dry and brown. I wandered, reading epitaphs of old, histories etched vaguely in the stone of miners now surrounded by their gold that death had finally given them to own. I met the ghosts that lived in ages past, soldiers, spinsters, people bold and wise, but suddenly my gaze was drawn at last to one small mound that brought tears to my eyes. Inscribed, "Here lies Nathaniel, cherished son-- born in 1849, died in sixty-one. I knelt beside that grave and cried with grief not felt in any heart for a hundred years for a boy of twelve and a life so very brief. Time was no great hindrance to my tears. For as I walked away I saw a field where once a boy in overalls would run. I passed a schoolhouse, boarded up and sealed where once, impatiently, his math was done. I wade cross a stream where fish were caught and picnic lunches eaten in the shade on days when Santa Ana winds blew hot and carefree hooky with his friends was played. Then his young soul left this world behind only to live immortal in my mind. by Lisa (Teel) Rodriguez 1983