Rosehill by Donald Gecewicz

Poetry
44 Pages
7" x 5.5" single signature with hand sewn binding
Published June 2016

Taking inspiration from Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters and from the Greek or Palantine Anthology which ranges across a thousand years and includes work from around 450 poets, this collection of epigrams hails from the Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago. The poems are full of candor and wit, giving the reader an intimate insight into the possible lives of those interred.

EMILY PIERCE NEMETH [1911-1989]

There is nothing but love,
yes, love, the word we learn early,
and spend later years avoiding,
reading novels with rickety plots
and gaping at romantic slop
in the movie houses.
When my Janos (and he was mine
as much as anything else
in this world) died, I
was left by myself, lonely,
unready for ten years of dinners alone
in the quiet house in River Forest
and long-distance calls from our son
who lives in Atlanta now.
I thought about how
the course of my life had returned
to my childhood discovery,
there is nothing but love.