Across the Cemetery Fence - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Across the Cemetery Fence

Hart-Bevil Cemetery, Tyler County, Texas

From service as Companions of the Conqueror
To the democracy of death and dust


This was family land in the long ago
Now alienated from the living
Accessible through permissions and locks
But we and the ghosts are okay with that

They say that only four of them were hanged
The dealer in false deeds died of old age
Some possibly were saints; hard to believe
For after all, we are de Beauville’s kin

From Normandy, and then green Chesterton
And then dispersed to the colonies
At the convenience of His Majesty
De Beauvilles and Bevilles and then Bevils

And some are buried on this lonely knoll
Dim mossy bones and stones among the pines
Across the fence a little heap of glass
Broken flower vases from the dime store


Now the democracy of dust and death
But once
                     Companions of the Conqueror