Mt. Hope

Mount Hope
is the namesake

for a cemetery rooted
by maples and

centered on a landform
-the Mason Esker,

a river run dry
when glaciers ran North.

Here my family name cuts
granite on a hilltop

near an oak
cradling a babe's grave.

The dead lend serenity
to the living

as voluptuous drops
pelt the geraniums

leaning over my father's ashes
buried over his father's casket

Above their plots
and Grandmother's,

cottonwood pollen
floats.