Bad Poetry: The Peculiar Spring Rituals of My People

(At the Poets & Storytellers United page that prompted this, Magaly Guerrero said that people in New York think it's strange to visit graveyards in the spring. Well, it's Southern.)

One day when the weather is almost always lovely

is officially designated as Memorial Day

and, although wills direct heirs to pay

for a burial plot in a field that's tended gravely,

the proper tradition is to gather flowers,

friends, family, often a picnic meal

(real sticklers for tradition may still feel

that one graveyard should be considered "ours"

so all the graves are visited together)

spend mornings placing flowers near the head

of each grave in the family. The dead,

some think, may join the relatives who gather.

Some tell the year's news to the dear departed.

Some tell their stories to the young. It started

with earlier spring festivals; the Romans

spent Rosalia hanging roses round

the doors of tombs, and our ancestors found

in memories of ancient Rome good omens

for our Republic. After the observance 

the holiday's observed with games and sports

and shopping. Children play, and sweethearts court.

Being serious for four hours seems a burden

on such a day as our tradition's chosen

for serious thoughts. How quickly our moods change!

And we think water festivals are strange,

or fire festivals, where land's still frozen,

or living things, for springtime celebrations?

Some of us still offer our dead libations.

(As might be expected, my family tradition--this one goes back a few generations--scorns "wasteful" displays of remembrance and emphasizes remembering the dead by carrying on something they did or stood for. 

https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2018/08/memorials.html )