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1 Piece by Tom Hartman
Graves
In the Fall of our 5th grade year
we set to work on the timecapsule,
spent an hour or so each day clipping
articles, writing our autobiographies
designing a construction-paper chart
of the prices of milk, bread,
gasoline. The afternoon before
the interment, we made a tape
of our voices, halting and embarrassed
before the microphone.
By then it was mid-Spring. We
marched to the rectory yard, stood
two deep, a semi-circle around
the statue of Mary in the tiny plot
of garden. The capsule awaited us there:
black, an anonymous cylinder, alien
and exquisite, snug in the perfect rectangle
someone had dug. One by one we
came forward, shoveled our share of dirt
on the fresh grave of the present.
Above us, a bell tolled dutifully.
Dark suits milled by the line of long
black cars at the curbside. I watched
a ladybug disappear in the golden hair
of the girl in front of me. But mostly
I recall the young priest. He emerged
from the back door of the rectory,
paused. Unaware or unmoved by
the events of this day, he cupped
his hands against the wind, looked
around, and lit a cigarette.
Tom Hartman is a graduate of The University of Pennsylvania
and Columbia University. He lives in the New Jersey suburbs
of Philadelphia where he teaches writing, designs web pages,
and plays basketball.
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