by Stewart Alter
Earphones on, playing contemporary,
The exercise walker was sure he knew
His way around the cemetery.
He had been often on its boundary
Where, as a passer-by, he had observed
Those crests and valleys of capsulized lives,
Their skeletonized facts in stone preserved
Amid that web of walkways, quiet and curved.
He longed to reach the far side avenue,
Impatient to explore what lay beyond.
So a shortcut across this scenic view
Was what his rhythmic vigor could rally to.
Right here in the city sat this country relief,
A landscape as much as it was sacred ground
Where he was free to bound over branch and leaf,
Bypassing the mourners clustered in grief.
Assured of his stance, now marching with pride,
He refused to be ruled by an unseen world.
With his music to guide his clocklike stride,
He would forge his own path to the other side.
Stewart Alter, who joined LP2 in the Fall of 2020, has been writing poetry and painting intermittently before, during and now after a long career in business journalism and corporate communications.