Markers A love story

by Bonnie Larson Staiger 

They share a Burman tombstone.
First, Grandma on the right in 1933.
When she died, Granddad scraped together
enough money to buy a family plot

paying extra for perpetual care.
He dug up a wisp of an elm tree—
a volunteer down by Stinky Slough—
and planted it next to her grave.

No rain fell during those years without her.
He carried a bucket to water all three—the tree
and grass on both graves. His, an empty placeholder
beside her. His year of death left uncut

in gleaming granite. In ’44 he joined her 
in that double bed. She missed the Dirty Thirties
and he missed WWII. More graves came later
Mom, Dad, with a space for me in between.

The ancients say trees are spirits destined
to connect Mother Earth and the universe. Now
that elm tree towers overhead. It sifts                                                 
summer suns and appeases winter’s wind.
 

After all these years, I still come to honor
its purpose and this place. Offering my gratitude
for sinking roots next to Granddad, for shade
on these grassy graves, and a conduit to the cosmos. 

When it’s my turn, my ashes – some placed here
for history but most sprinkled on another
precious prairie among more tended trees,
and children—all nurtured through the years.
Windswept and free.