Visitation by Carl Palmer

“...and here's a marvelous convenient place for our rehearsal.”

                                                 ~ A Midsummer Night's Dream

His name and date of birth on the left,

hers on the right, etched in the stone

marker displaying their family name

easily seen from the graveyard gate.

The two smile familiar from a recent 

photo posed indelible on granite slab

for visits hereafter to this tombstone

resting upon their final resting place.

I look at the picture of Mom and Dad, 

trace the letters of my carved surname,

walk around their memorial, mindful 

both my parents are far from departed.

Only electing an entombment chamber,

this future family plot paid for in full,

vacantly awaiting infinite residency, 

merely missing their mortal remains. 

Grateful both are still here with me,

more grateful neither now beside me

to witness my tearful preview of that 

day when these empty spaces are filled.

Carl “Papa” Palmer of Old Mill Road in Ridgeway, Virginia, lives in University Place, Washington.  He is retired from the military and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) enjoying life as “Papa” to his grand descendants and being a Franciscan Hospice volunteer. Carl is a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and Micro Award nominee. MOTTO: Long Weekends Forever!