When I taught this poem to several of my English classes at Fort Carson from the literature book we used, I always found the concept intriguing. We know the date when we were born; we do not know the date that will eventually be the one set in stone when we die.
All those headstones I have seen in military and civilian cemeteries have a starting date and an ending date. My mom's in the White Cloud, Kansas, cemetery. My grandparents--her parents--also buried there beside her. My uncle and my cousin buried in the San Joaquin Valley National Cemetery in California where I have gone the past three years to take my aunt for her annual Memorial Day visit.
"Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star...."
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