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Strangers in the Box

By Pamela A. Harazim

Come, look with me inside this drawer,

In this box I've often seen,

At the pictures, black and white,

Faces proud, still, serene.

I wish I knew the people,

These strangers in the box,

Their names and all their memories

Are lost among my socks.

I wonder what their lives were like.

How did they spend their days?

What about their special times?

I'll never know their ways.

If only someone had taken time

To tell who, what, where, when,

These faces of my heritage

Would come to life again.

Could this become the fate

Of the pictures we take today?

The faces and the memories

Someday to be tossed away?

Make time to save your pictures,

Seize the opportunity when it knocks,

Or someday you and yours could be

The strangers in the box.

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Your tombstone stands among the rest

Neglected and alone.

The name and date are chiseled out

On polished, marbled stone.

It reaches out to all who care

It is too late to mourn.

You did not know that I exist

you died and I was born.

Yet each of us are cells of you

In flesh, in blood, in bone.

Our blood contracts and beats a pulse

Entirely not our own.

Dear Ancestor, the place you filled

One hundred years ago

Spread out among the ones you left

Who would have loved you so.

I wonder if you lived and loved,

I wonder if you knew

That someday I would find this spot,

And come to visit you.

By Walter Butler Palmer (1906)

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THE RECORDING OF A CEMETERY

by Thelma Greene Reagan

Today we walked where others walked

On a lonely, windswept hill;

Today we talked where other cried

For Loved Ones whose lives are stilled.

Today our hearts were touched

By graves of tiny babies;

Snatched from the arms of loving kin,

In the heartbreak of the ages.

Today we saw where the grandparents lay

In the last sleep of their time;

Lying under the trees and clouds

Their beds kissed by the sun and wind.

Today we wondered about an unmarked spot;

Who lies beneath this hollowed ground?

Was it a babe, child, young or old?

No indication could be found.

Today we saw where Mom and Dad lay.

We had been here once before

On a day we'd all like to forget,

But will remember forever more.

Today we recorded for kith and kin

The graves of ancestors past;

To be preserved for generations hence,

A record we hope will last.

Cherish it, my friend; preserve it, my friend,

For stones sometimes crumble to dust

And generations of folks yet to come

Will be grateful for your trust.