Poetry | January 13, 2026

Cherished

BATHA HALL (died Feb. 1698, aged 6 weeks)
Hall Family Cemetery, Dennis, Massachusetts

Behind the Cape Playhouse where, after work,
I marveled at the construction of stage sets—
imagined and then realized artifice—a path.

Diseased white pines display their tumors,
a gnarled vista of Tolkien and leprosy,
before a petite wooden bridge garnished by primal

ferns arcs over Chase Garden Creek. Some children,
perhaps playing Indians, have abandoned an impractical
stick hut. Evergreens brighten the musty ground—

and then the cemetery reveals its thirty-four memorials
fenced by granite and iron. Among six cedars:
this fifteen-inch tribute to a tiny life.

Was it your father, Samuel, or mother, Patience,
who dreamed unprecedented graven imagery?
In high relief, two doves dangle cherries

from their bills. They straddle a bowl that could be
hammered brass from India, opulently
mounded with stemless fruit. Far grander in size,

what’s possibly an apple with inverted, wing-like
leaves plummets from the heavens, challenging
narrative like an incomprehensible truth.

Youthful swirls, artfully fingerpainted,
border this unique tableau of grief and charm.
You remained the only child of their lives,

Batha. To honor you is to honor them.
In their austere Puritan world,
you were all the art they had.