The first time I contemplated eternity
was in a Shaker cemetery in the suburbs
of Ohio. It wasn’t because of the Shakers
or the headstones. It wasn’t because
of the bloodless deaths we had seen
in movies or the everyday funerals
for birds & tadpoles & insects
we took apart like windup clocks & never
could put back together. We were so young
the cycles of nature evoked more wonder
than trepidation. Skulls found in the woods
were miracles to be held, to rub clean
& turn over, more exciting than finding
a magic lamp. The world beckoned & sang
to us without electricity. On that grassy hill
in the Shaker cemetery behind my house,
we lay on our backs staring longer than ever
at cloud shapes moving & re-forming over us.
Love I didn’t recognize, but now I know it was
the first time I was conscious of the sky
never beginning & never ending.
This poem first appeared in Abandoned Mine journal, and is from the chapbook Small Talk by Jeffrey Schwartz (Finishing Line Press): https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/small-talk-by-jeffrey-schwartz/
Jeffrey Schwartz grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, attended universities in Boston and Pittsburgh, and settled in Connecticut where he has taught English for many years. His first collection was published by Alice James Books and more recent poems have appeared in Hanging Loose, Pedestal Magazine, Naugatuck River Review, the Berru Poetry Series sponsored by the Jewish Book Council, and elsewhere. Picture Houses, a hand-stitched, limited edition of poems about film, was published in 2018. He has also written for books and journals on student-centered learning, including his co-edited Students Teaching, Teachers Learning.
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