Prosperity

Prosperity,
my wife of just a year,
castaway,
drowned,
washed ashore
and now buried here.
This granite garden
overlooks the source of life
and your demise.

How is it
that these flowers
now grow upon your grave.
Who planted them here
while I slept.
What lies within
that has transformed
your bones into blooms
to punctuate my grief.

My heart has become a cavern.
At the entrance
I see sunshine,
flowers grow about,
but a short distance within
a terrible gloom begins,
and further on
there dwell monsters
of diverse kind.

It is my own hell,
within you may wander
long and without hope,
but when your eyes adjust
a new light will strike you.
Peep towards it
in there is a region
that has all the beauty
of the entrance
but more perfect.

These are the depths
of my heart,
bright and peaceful.
Grief and terror may be deep
but deeper still
is the eternal beauty
that nothing can kill.
My love brings me
flowers still
when I come to her
at Old Burial Hill.

Stuart Cudlitz
Marblehead/San Franscico
1995

Songs And Poems


	Prosperity Prosperity, my wife of just a year, castaway, drowned, washed ashore and now buried here. This granite garden overlooks the source of life and your demise. How is it that these flowers now grow upon your grave. Who planted them here while I slept. What lies within that has transformed your bones into blooms to punctuate my grief. My heart has become a cavern. At the entrance I see sunshine, flowers grow about, but a short distance within a terrible gloom begins, and further on there dwell monsters of diverse kind. It is my own hell, within you may wander long and without hope, but when your eyes adjust a new light will strike you. Peep towards it in there is a region that has all the beauty of the entrance but more perfect. These are the depths of my heart, bright and peaceful. Grief and terror may be deep but deeper still is the eternal beauty that nothing can kill. My love brings me flowers still when I come to her at Old Burial Hill. Stuart Cudlitz Marblehead/San Franscico 1995
		Songs And Poems