Woodlawn Cemetery...Santa Monica
…Just beyond the Palisades
Where eighteen souls…lay buried
…….Within a plot..beneath the shade
…Of a gnarled…old tree growing
From a seedling destiny placed
…On hallowed grounds…at Woodlawn
Where eighteen souls…embrace
…In some sacred…convocation
From a cast…of many drawn
…Eighteen souls were favored
Amongst thousands dead at Woodlawn
Whyler, Franco, Lockwood, Diaz
...Some..of the chosen few
Of eighteen souls summoned
…To that spiritual...rendezvous
With the gnarled…old tree growing
...Whose roots some reason sought
To touch….eighteen souls at Woodlawn
…And those eighteen souls.....escort
Into millennia…......called…......forever
…Where God has etched…that last...Decree
On...its scroll....may joy......be written
...For eighteen souls…
............................Eighteen souls
.............................................And the quaint
.................................................................Old tree
Author's note:
Soon after the 1994 'Northridge earthquake' Los Angeles....my wife and I literally stumbled across this extraordinary spectacle. Indeed a striking scene...replete with poignancy all its own. Imagine a large tree...its roots surfacing dramatically, tenacles traveling some distance, then abruptly...disappearing into...18 individual grave sites!
Woodlawn Cemetery...1847 - 14th St....Santa Monica CA 90404
James B. Earley
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/eighteen-souls-at-woodlawn/
