‘When the wind stops’
At the Rhode Island Veterans Memorial Cemetery, in Exeter
“The March of Time” (Decoration Day, later renamed Memorial Day) in Boston, by Henry Sandham (1842-1910), Canadian painter who lived in Boston for 20 years.
Life contracts and death is expected,
As in a season of autumn.
The soldier falls.
He does not become a three-days personage,
Imposing his separation,
Calling for pomp.
Death is absolute and without memorial,
As in a season of autumn,
When the wind stops,
When the wind stops and, over the heavens,
The clouds go, nevertheless,
In their direction.
— Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), famed American Modernist poet. He was also an insurance executive and lawyer. He lived and worked in Hartford.