Thoughts About A Memorial Montage, by Anton Nemeth

Thoughts About A Memorial Montage

 

No, this is not where she’s interred.

This is but a pale cenotaph

That signs toward what’s referred.

We do not know what rock or tree

She’s deep or shallow buried by,

Or in what fresh green meadow damp

Or desert dry with shifting sands.

Neither have we facts about the how

Or of what incident she died.

We have only this marker made

Of resin, paint, and gauze and wood

Representing what some marker

Elsewhere said wherever it stood.
She is but a vague suggestion

Now, called by a three letter name,

Revisiting the story that

Was her, for those few who loved her,

If they did, remembered in thoughts

Of pride or shame all related to

Whatever face she had for each,

Dimensioned for their unique needs

Of relationship.

We never
Know who’s really there, only our

Conjecturing of who they are

In our relations had with them.
Thus here she lies, as a painted specter

Sideways on a wall, not even

Near where her body unknown lies

Removed in place and name remote

From her final place of real estate.

 

by Anton Nemeth