-At the grave of Albert Pinkham Ryder / Lot 4 / Section V-

So I went along to visit the grave of Albert Pinkham Ryder

which was marked by a heavy looking, but standard-issue stone,

a stone you might pass unnoticed when visiting a cemetery near you;

a non-monumental monument.

––I might have expected a stone of darker granite,

its face blackened, smeared by overcoats of home-cooked varnish,––

riven,–– marked by erratic webs of otherworldly fissures,

all to mirror the surfaces of his pictures.

But in the end it was what it was; a headstone.

––The experience took place years ago at the "Rural Cemetery"

in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Daylight had faded and October supplied an early moonlight,

graced with sweeping Ryder skies in honor of our company.

 ––An art school upperclassman had asked one of us to attend,

and two others tagged along for the viewing.

I was one of two.

At the gravesite I was one of four;

one of five if Ryder is included in the column of attendees.

date of the experience: 1964