For The Steady One
We came not just to walk, but remember...
Past Concord’s hush, past pine and ember -
Where word and wind and granite sleep,
And roots hold secrets buried deep.
No fanfare marked the path we chose -
Just lichen bloom on aging rows,
And leaves like letters overhead
That whispered names we’d long since read.
Sleepy Hollow breathed and stilled,
Its stone-lined paths through shadow filled.
The tombs lay tucked in folded shade,
As if by earth’s own hand they’d stayed.
The maples leaned like thoughts half-spoken,
Their limbs in prayer, their silence broken
Only by crow or breeze or fall
Of acorns down the chapel wall.
We climbed the hill where writers rest,
Where Concord cradles all its best.
Though worn by countless feet, the ground
Felt consecrated, spirit-bound -
A chapel roofed in sky and pine,
Where thought and time and root align.
You walked with me - The Steady One,
Your quiet step, the surer sun.
We spoke in murmurs soft, austere,
Yet every word drew someone near.
Their lines were here - in bark and loam,
In every tree, a thought, a home.
At Thoreau’s grave, so small, so plain,
We found his voice alive again:
A stone that said but “HENRY” - bare,
And yet the woods still answered there.
“I went to live deliberately,”
You smiled, and turned your eyes to me.
That single line, both root and stream,
Contained our life - the pared-down dream.
Then Emerson...his granite tower
Still pressed against the sky for power.
A sermon carved, austere, severe,
Yet somehow warm to standing near.
Self-Reliance stirred the air;
The pinecones dropped like earnest prayer.
His voice, a lantern held in frost,
Rekindled vows we’d thought were lost.
Louisa...quiet, firm, and kind,
Lay close, companion of the mind.
No marble grace, no grand display,
Just work and will that still held sway.
You touched her name; I saw begin
The girl you were come forth again.
In her resolve, her steadfast fire,
You found the courage to aspire.
Hawthorne’s grave lay dark, apart,
A deeper shadow of the heart.
His name half-hidden, earth’s soft seam,
The mark of sin, the price of dream.
You said, “He knew how secrets last -
How no one wholly leaves the past.”
I held your hand and let it stay;
The dusk itself had turned to gray.
And all around, in hush profound,
The great minds circled, stone and mound.
The forest kept their blended tones...
Their prayers in roots, their words in stones.
The brook still spoke in Emerson,
The path was Thoreau’s journey run;
The dappled light through branches stirred -
Louisa’s hope, Hawthorne’s word.
Because of them, our love took root...
In pages read, in patient fruit,
In winter nights by lamplight strung,
With words like prayers upon the tongue.
We learned to bend, to see the end,
To read, and love, and still depend
On questions whispered to the sky -
Not answers, but the asking why.
Love isn’t loud, but it is sure -
It marks the things that will endure:
Not fame, nor wealth, nor bright display,
But reading close and walking gray.
A turning leaf, a held-back sigh,
The courage still to ask of why.
Not always bold, but always brave,
Like standing by a writer’s grave.
And as we turned to leave the hill,
The dusk behind us hushed and still,
I knew the words we carry on
Outlive the stones though names are gone.
For hand in hand, through page and pine,
Your life has long been stitched to mine.
GBS
2024
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