Pebbles of Remembrance
I have not placed a pebble
on my mother’s grave.
She lies far away,
wrapped in a shroud
on a hillside in Israel.
So on Yom Kippur at Yiskor,
as well as at Pesach,
I voice our people’s hope:
Next year in Jerusalem.
I have not placed a pebble
on my father’s grave.
He has none.
His ashes are scattered;
perhaps some float on the winds.
So wherever I lay a pebble
down on the ground,
it may suffice.
Perhaps some of him is here.
Keith Tornheim, September 26, 2012