Past the Golden Gate National Cemetery’s sleek rows 
of white marble markers and flag at half-mast
are Hills of Eternity and Home of Peace
where my parents lie.
My promised visits there are infrequent, 
timed for convenience
as this one was.

On acres of tended lawn monuments and headstones 
crowd generations together. Tributes sand-blasted 
into stones are similar, predictable—
only the names change.
Loving Fathers, Husbands, Sons, Daughters—
the “Dear Departed,” my irreverent 
mother would say.

As a widow, she selected
a double headstone of Black Galaxy granite,
its Starry Night effect a better choice than Absolute Black,
unsure what eternity might offer.
I was at that headstone bringing news,
shedding tears.

Standing in the damp grass
placing stones to mark my visit,
I felt something on exposed toes of a sandaled foot:
a worm wiggling its way, a visitor from the underworld.
My plucky mother still had power to startle,
her spirit not bound by pounds of earth, by mounds of stone.