The cemetery I take care of
Is a wreck from 2 years ago
Most all I left there is gone
The two American Flags flying high
At each end of the front fence
All the square nails I found
The solar lights I placed
Every four feet around the fence
Are all gone
I'm surprised the artificial flowers
Are still there
The cross I made for the top
Of Henry and Marilyn Kupers kin's stone
Is still there
Planted in the dirt
Not on top of the stone
As it was
There's tumbleweeds all over the place
Now
Someone took the glass
Granite stones
Nails and trinkets
That belong to the ground
Of the cemetery
And put them in a bucket of mud
While I had them displayed so nicely
On an old fertilizer barrel at the gate
To not take anything from the holy place
But only give to it
What I could give to the pioneers?
Except my time
My prayers
My hands
My legs
My back
The wreaths I made for holidays
To remind the dead
That I think of them
It's like that
When you leave a place
Every memory of you almost
Erased from the Earth
By vandals
Or thieves
Or people who think
The dead deserve no banners
No love
No prayers
No lights
No flag of this great country
They came to for a better life
Flying overhead
Their graves
Or flying below them
Because they probably went to heaven
In the struggle to survive
This harsh land of dirt
Little water
Scorching summers
Freezing nights
The loneliness of this place
The back-breaking work
Their children that died young
Without the antibiotics of today
And all we
In this future
Take advantage of
Those pioneers
Had little or nothing
Some had Christianity
The Protestant kind
The Lutheran way
The way my dad was raised
That I don't know about
Except for knowing
Luther broke away from the
Catholic doctrine
I was raised a Baptist
(From my mother's side)
That cemetery reminds me
Of my Norwegian and Swedish roots
Although there's no German in me
Just the word "Lutheran" in the name is enough
Now
The names of the dead are listed
On a paper enclosed
In a frame outside the gate
So you don't have to go in the gate
As though I do
And stand at each grave
Saying a little prayer for
The future generations
Possibly still living on the same farms
Of old
Tilling the same land they tilled
150 years ago
No one has to care for that cemetery
But me
So if you did take the pioneer's hoopla
From them
I'm back
You leave the stuff I leave for
The pioneers alone
You leave my dirt hill of heaven alone
I'll get it back to the glory it had
Before I had to leave
It's more than the "Myrick Cemetery"
To me
It's the LUTHERAN-GERMAN CEMETERY
It's a way to serve the Northern European places
My ancestors came from
It's a way to serve God's Good Green Earth
That ain't so green there
But that's okay
The angels flying there
See the little lights
The artificial flowers
The Christmas and Valentine Wreaths
The American Flags flying
And they are pleased
Because they thank me
With the most beautiful sunsets
I've ever seen
Before
And once
The proof of God was in one of them
I filmed
As the film I took
Didn't have God's white light vibrating
Until I uploaded it
And God shone through
In a video
Giving me hope
Faith
And love
From somewhere above
That I will never fully understand
But that's okay
Because he is God
And I am woman
Blessed be the holy places
Where God's spirit
Is all light
There is no darkness
In him at all
So again
I'll work to clean that holy place up
To light it up
To pray it up
To respect the dead
It's one reason
I came back here
My LUTHERAN-GERMAN CEMETERY
Maybe I'll get lucky
And be buried there someday too
Possibly another 150 years down the road
Some eccentric future woman
Will put artificial flowers on my lonely grave
Perhaps my angel wings beating
There where there's only spirit
Will give someone a sign of God too
They'll not know in fact
They'll know in spirit
It will see them through another day
When they just want God to take them away
To a better place
Than this place
It was good today to be there
With my dogs
Picking up branches
Since I had no gloves
No shovel
No water
But while I was there
I'll always have
My Father
So I'm blessed
Thank you cemetery
For being there
So I can be your loving guest.
