Sunday, November 6, 2011

How To Spend Memorial Day


This post was written in tangent to this photo take from Tess' blogsite, placed there as the topic driver for her Magpie Tales gathering. You may *click here* to get to the links that her contributors leave there. This session is marked as the 90th post and I presume this means ninety weeks, nearing two years of activity.

***********
Some of the better reasons to visit New England are the old graveyards. We had friends to visit in Vermont and I fell in love with Revolutionary War graveyards. I loved the immediacy of the past in the dates on the stones, the preservation of some of them and the neglected quality of others. As a migratory child of World War II California, I found the compressed distance to the 1700s was palpable and delicious.

My family has not been among those who bury our dead. We cremate.

I had to wait a number of years more to have someone personal to me buried in a cemetery. Now I have a couple nearby in the local national cemetery and I have used that site as a power point on the planet, a place somehow closer to God's ear. When my wife of over twenty years died I took a portion of her ashes up there - the cemetery is placed elevated on the side of a steep hill near the top - and I sprinkled her ashes in the summer dry crack behind the marble plaque that identified her aunt and uncle. I visited at least once a year for over a decade.

At one point a few years ago I went up there and made my amends to my wife's shade. Since that time I have not returned but once.

How To Spend Memorial Day

Set marble stubs, wood
painted or not in lines
drawn on the forest
floor and fenced by men
entrusted to build for us
the reservation
of the dead within
what was once not ours at all
except to pass through.
We plant our dry lives
as seeds of dissolution,
wait for them to grow.
I pledge to visit
but then declare that one day
a day better used
as a day of rest.

November 6, 2011 8:00 AM

24 comments:

  1. lots of beautiful lines in this... love it!

    JJRod'z

    ReplyDelete
  2. Both power and beauty in your words.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like the notion of planting our dry lives like a seed...nice write...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I like that you started this well written piece on a personal note.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "We plant our dry lives as seeds of dissolution" also drew me. As did the shift from depicting the cemetery, with its marble stubs and painted wood, in an almost pagan way toward the Ecclesiastes feel of a time to visit, a time to rest. Nicely crafted.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I too have found power and healing in cemeteries, but life really is for the living. We don't dishonor those who have passed on by resting and nourishing our living bodies.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thoughtful writing about death and life....great magpie

    ReplyDelete
  8. My favorite. I've often wondered...

    ReplyDelete
  9. We plant our dry lives as seeds of dissolution. This is just beautiful beautiful as is the rest of the poem. K.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Very deep feelings here as I feel this loss so evoked in your words. The rivetting passage; "as seeds of dissolution"; very much a spiritual journey. Thank-you!

    ReplyDelete
  11. So touching. A very beautiful piece.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thank you all. I am glad to be a participant in the Magpie world.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I too like the idea of planting 'our dry lives/ as seeds of dissolution,' and also the 'reservation of the dead' A very thoughtful piece. Thank you for sharing the personal background for this.

    ReplyDelete
  14. your poem was beautiful and the introductory lines very moving. I am always interested in what we do for others that is necessary for ourselves.

    ReplyDelete
  15. That was a very moving post, even before I reached the poem.
    I visited the WW1 graves in France once. That was stunning, absolutely stunning. So many, so many un-named except to God.
    Jamie

    ReplyDelete
  16. You have shared some personal moments here and very tender memories too!!

    ReplyDelete
  17. planting the dry leaves is a great touch to this bringing it personal...also the day of rest at the end is stirring...

    ReplyDelete
  18. The only place remembrance needs a marker, is inside each one of us, wherever we are. Thank you for this heartfelt post.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Lots of good feeling in this one. I'm all for cremation, but it's the lack of a marker that worries me, as I explore in my Magpie this week, A Plot Both Great and Grand.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Your Magpie is beautiful, heartfelt.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I said to my dad I'd walk among unnamed graves one day. He spoke of them often. I may let him down on this one, sadly. I don't travel well.

    It was a very moving piece.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Memories live best in our hearts.

    Anna :o]

    ReplyDelete
  23. Being a New England girl, I found your intro interesting. We have wandered through the old cemeteries by the Meeting House in Rockingham, VT, and in Stockbridge, MA, although most N.E. towns have their own little fenced area of fascinating history.

    I found your poem quite poignant but true. A cemetery is a symbol. No cemetery is necessary as long as we still remember in our thoughts and hearts.

    ReplyDelete

The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


Get Your Own Visitor Map!