Jacob's Tombstone, June 1796
The exact date is held inside a tree.

Jacob Martin died today.
Sally sat alone on the front porch,
rocking an empty cloth, her second boy, born
in the cold of winter, gone in the warmth of June.
Rocking still, she sat alone, caressing his empty cloth, staring north
at the leaves of red maple dripping rain as she vowed reunion.
Jeffe leaned at the doorway, arms crossed, staring south,
and said to bury the boy in the town cemetery would
grant everlasting life.

Jacob's tombstone came today.
Sally wore her black bonnet, carrying his
empty cloth in processing to the shadeless grave
where red sandstone bore her child's name.
Jeffe thus prayed, 'What beautiful love
was seen in thy short life and death of woe.
Our boy Jacob, may thy soul touch the face of God
and live as the trees that thee might be
granted everlasting life.'

Jacob's mother died today.
Sixty-seven years since and buried in black bonnet,
she had held his empty cloth and promised to meet him there
where red sandstone had begun to fade and peel.
They buried Sally towns away though, in a field of maple shade
along the road to Manhattan, for a parishioner had heard
her once mutter on a rain drenched day by oak sapling near the porch,
her fingers red with soil, 'She who plants trees plants hope and
grants everlasting life.'

Jacob's seed was born today.
Maple fallen down from heaven to extend Sally's roots
into soil where, covered in a tangled web forgotten,
red sandstone lay unmoved, untouched three or perhaps four score.
Town bustling, coal burning, steam rising, bells ringing,
the new train to Manhattan sending seeds at noon and ten, rising
with the wind, but just one with her last stop the old Metuchen cemetery,
falling by red sandstone where she might
live with him in everlasting life.

Jacob's soul touched heaven today.
In maple seventy rings tall, her leaves reaching in the warmth of June,
ever higher, he met the face of God in Sally's branches.
She will not rest. Her soul cradles red sandstone from the wind
of trains on the half hour, his blood in her veins,
sprinkling down in drenching rain from maple seeds. She holds Jacob,
slowly encompassing herself around him, soon the century lost.
What beautiful love is seen, for together they rise and fall,
intertwined in timeless everlasting life.

by Julie Walton Shaver




For many decades, the Old Colonial Cemetery in Metuchen was neglected.
This tombstone reads, where legible:

Jacob C. the 2d
Son of Jeffe and Sally
Martin
Died June the
(date obscured by tree) '796 aged 6 mon

Photograph by Julie Walton Shaver, August 2004