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The first time I contemplated eternity
Jeff Schwartz

was in a Shaker cemetery in the suburbs
of Ohio. It wasn’t because of the Shakers
or the headstones. It wasn’t because
of the bloodless deaths we had seen
in movies or the everyday funerals
for birds & tadpoles & insects
we took apart like windup clocks & never
could put back together. We were so young
the cycles of nature evoked more wonder
than trepidation. Skulls found in the woods
were miracles to be held, to rub clean
& turn over, more exciting than finding
a magic lamp. The world beckoned & sang
to us without electricity. On that grassy hill
we lay on our backs staring longer than ever
at cloud shapes moving & reforming over us.
Love I didn’t recognize, but now I know it was
the first time I was conscious of the sky
never beginning & never ending.

—
Jeff Schwartz was born in Ohio, educated in Boston and Pittsburgh, and raised a family in Connecticut, where he has taught writing for the last 33 years. His first collection was published by Alice James Books and his most recent, Picture Houses, was published by Dexterity Press. Other poems have appeared in Paterson Literary Review, Hanging Loose, Iron City Magazine, Borderlands, Cincinnati Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He also writes frequently about student-centered learning.

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