MY EPITAPH

In my poetry-writing class, it was suggested we write our own epitaph. Here’s mine.

Joan Kane Nichols

1938—

In a thin pine box beneath this tree

here I lie as you can see

feeding Nature as it fed me.

I found the photograph on Tom McLaughlin’s blog post of May 19, 2007 (scroll down the post). The grave shown is on top of a hill on a long-abandoned farm in Stoneham, Maine. The oak tree shading it, probably planted at the same time as the burial, is dying now, its share of sunlight blocked by the surrounding white pines.

The epitaph inscribed on the slate reads:

OLIVE W.

wife of Jacob Stiles

died August, 1848

AE 51 yrs 7m

Olive was Jacob’s second wife and stepmother to his eleven children. She loved to walk out to the hilltop to enjoy the view of pasture, woods, and pond. Here, she told her family, was where she wanted to be buried. I envy her choice. Beats the bland, featureless, suburban grave lots on Long Island by a long shot.