At The Kinzer Mennonite Cemetery Poem by Anne Higgins

At the Kinzer Mennonite Cemetery



At last, I see them.
I see them!
They are holding hands
as they rise from beneath the headstones,
Pillows of their double bed.

He speaks:
I stood where you stand,
In 1922, in March,
when the pasture grass greened,
Crying, holding the week old twins,
Calling to the mourners –
Can anyone take these children?
Can anyone take these children?

I went home with all six,
Hanging on each other,
Hanging on me.
How they huddled with me
On the long evenings.

Then the fiery truck
Took me from them.
1924, and I’m bedded down
again with my love
here, where the farmland
stretches out around us.

We rise to stare at you,
graying daughter
of our daughter.
We look across
83 years
at you,
older than we ever knew.