THE OLD JEWISH CEMETERY
AT HAMILTON, ONTARIO

When, as a boy, I went collecting fossils,
I found the best ones at the Escarpment's base
In pieces broken off the rocky layers
That, stretching backwards, underlie this place.

Here, in between the limestone and the sod,
My people have deposited their bones;
But love, being, as King Solomon observed,
As strong as death, it rears memorial stones.

Come over here with me and take a look:
My grandfathers are neighbours in this row,
Four graves apart, they died so close together.
My grandmothers have kept their distance, though.

The old-time Jews would call this a bes-oylem,
A most appropriate term, it seems to me,
For, in their mediaeval German Hebrew,
It signified "house of eternity."

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