It's grown over
      some headstones
      poking up through ivy

I pushed back the green
      to try to read
      from the old stone.

Unfamiliar names to me
      and dates
      over a century old.

They are not remembered
      even as we shall not be
      after 100 years.

We don't know their politics
      or their religion
      or their life dream.

We only know
      they came ahead of us
      and opened the land.

Only God remembers
      those who disappear
      from our short memory.

I stopped a moment
      before the burial
      to pick a few.

They are a sample
      of the miracle
      in each of us.

They are stomped on
      mowed over, sun scorched
      and rain flooded.

Yet they persist and live...
      blossom at crucifixion time
      give fruit on Memorial Day.

They say the same DNA
      which is in us
       is in wild strawberries.

We share the very same
      survival persistence
      to bloom and bear fruit.

I like to think of
      wild strawberries
      on Memorial Day.