At The Grave Of Thomas Eakins, Late Winter Poem by Ernest Hilbert

Woodland Cemetery, Philadelphia

The first visit I failed to find it, where
Commodores and captains lie in brazen
White vaults over humble Quaker enclaves.
Five deer flashed in sun-streaked shade and paused there,
Pure as stone in faint sun flicker, frozen,
And then they dashed and leapt over worn graves.
My formal heart, numb and flawed, was struck raw
To learn life dies in art, yet such stillness
Can stir so fast it seems to disappear:
Time shown in a surgeon's blood-shadowed saw
Or summer's swift rowers slipping from us,
While upriver, to others, they grow nearer.
Wind rearranges sunlight through the pines,
Sowing and destroying endless designs.