Fairmount

John W. May

Ballad

How calm the sound of snow that's falling
Soft upon these lonely stones—
As if the north winds now were calling
Sleeping ghosts from restless bones.

Some think this yard of graves as eerie,
Filled with silence and with woes:
Where souls departed wander weary,
Chained to earth and seen by crows.

I've seen some come with flowers weeping,
Doubting God as they lament;
While others deemed the dead as sleeping,
Waiting for the Lord's advent.

And some would do the most appalling—
Cracking headstones, tagging hate.
Yet still the snow would be there falling,
Falling calmly on our fate.

About this poem

I was home and the weather outside produced thick flakes of slowly descending snow. It was very peaceful. For some reason or another I was thinking about Fairmount, one of Denver's largest cemeteries, and one of its oldest. The mood of the moment felt very serene and conducive to writing, and so I started with a line about descending snow which wove itself into a poem about a graveyard and death's inevitablity.

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Submitted by Vixility on July 09, 2023

Modified by Vixility on July 09, 2023

: 37 sec read
: 18 Views

Quick analysis:

Scheme	ABAB CDCD AEAE AFAF
Closest metre	Iambic tetrameter
Characters	630
Words	122
Stanzas	4
Stanza Lengths	4, 4, 4, 4

Full analysis for Fairmount »

John W. May

John W. May has lived in Colorado all his life. He currently works in the field of ophthalmology and loves to mountain bike and read about history. John first became a lover of poetry in 2008 after having read a poem by John Milton. He has been reading and studying the works of various poets since. His favorite poets are Emily Dickinson, Fyodor Tyutchev and W. B. Yeats. more…

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JokerGem
This is eerily decadent and resonates. I believe you matched that inspirational setting to the mood this evokes. You continue to awe me with your ability.
LikeReply 19 months ago
- Vixility
  Hey! Thanks. It's sometimes strange to me how poems (or at least the ideas that inspire them) come about. The idea for this particular piece not only came out of the blue but emerge while in the very act of writing the poem itself! Some poems take me weeks or months (some even years), but this particular one was finished within an hour. I attribute this to the perfect environmental conditions that brought it about.
  Thanks for stopping by! more »
  LikeReply9 months ago
- JokerGem
  most welcome. Different sources of inspiration can be intriguing and therefore leave the final work with a nugget or two in the memory banks.
  P.S. You are becoming quite the popular one, LoL!
  LikeReply 19 months ago

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"Fairmount" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/164170/fairmount>.

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