From an article, "A Continuing Conversation with a Poet" which appeared in the Sewanee Review 115.2 (2007) 290-292.
"Since our summer place is situated on an old quarry site, I insisted on Maine granite for Fred's headstone in lieu of the customary Vermont granite ordinarily employed in theregion. A young neighbor, using his tractor after a summer storm had loosened the earth, excavated from those same woods a block of smooth granite, the sides still rough and covered with green lichen. Since it was too massive for one headstone, I asked a local stonecutter to split it into two, leaving the other half for me.
So finally there is the matter of my own inscription, for it is not considered morbid in
Maine to incise the stone in advance and leave the date open. Treasuring our years
together, the joy of conversation and his gift to me of the ongoing discoveries I would
make about his life and poetry, I turned inevitably to the last lines of his book Poems
for Paula, from "Envoi": "share now this simple dwelling-place / where
timeless, we speak face to face."