March 5th, and it's the first day that truly feels like winter's thaw. This isn't a fluke, one of those freak 36-hour illusions of spring that have been so common this year, that have been causing plants across the northern hemisphere to bud, leaf, and bloom weeks too early. But today, the air hovers comfortably between brisk and lukewarm, the breeze blows gently without the sting of frost. The trees that aren't evergreens still remain bare, but no longer stark--softening, it feels, against the cloudless "blue true dream of sky." Diaphanous, a perfect semicircle of moon hangs midway between the zenith and horizon, enlarged so that I can just barely cover it with my thumb held an arm's length away. It's as if the cemetery is just at the end of a long exhale, almost ready to draw its bright green breath again.
Large banner-like signs have been posted around the grounds that "CLEANUP BEGINS MARCH 1. ALL MEMORIALS AND ORNAMENTS WILL BE REMOVED." All along my peripatetic loop around the cemetery's three hundred acres, small mounds of browning wreaths, adorned with crimson ribbons and holiday ornaments, have piled up beside the roads. Trinkets, too, buried among them--little angels, teddy bears, desiccated flowers the colors of old bruises, and silk flowers gaudy in their insistent tropical hues.
For once, there's not even a hint of snow on the ground today, and these Christmas wreaths seem even more alien among the growing verdure. More than this, I notice even more graves than I ever have before--flagstones centuries old, their engravings effaced by time, and coming close to being overtaken by the grass. Some of them I can't even see until they're nearly underfoot, worn down as they are and almost level with the roots and the worms.
I take a detour up a sloping gravel path I've never seen before. It winds for a short length through a densely wooded section of the cemetery, a thick-piled carpet of dead leaves over the ground. Low, artfully rough-hewn headstones line the path, many bearing the dates of 2015 or 2016. Recent deaths, still fresh, I imagine, in the minds of those who have been left behind. What startles me more, though, are the stones bearing names and only birth years--commissioned and placed while those who will come to rest beneath them are still very much alive. To be able to see your own headstone is one thing; to see the site of your burial, even; but to be able to visit your own grave, complete with headstone and covered by deadfall as though it had been dug and the earth had settled many years before--the thought confounds me. And yet--to be able to visit when the maples blossom in April; when their leaves, larger than hands, fan out in July; when they flame against the sun low on the horizon in October; when the branches are coated in shining white rime in January; to be able to witness with living eyes the perennial beauty of this place must be a comfort.
I exit the thicket and walk a ways on level ground among the taller and grander tombs, many of which I recognize, by now, from previous visits. On the other side of the path, the slope falls away toward a muddy section of road yet to be paved, stagnant water caught in tire tracks. Fragments--scraps?--of half-carved stone are strewn down there, as well as the sawed-off remnants of thick trees either downed by storms or removed to make way for more graves. Among the untamed brush below, flashes of blue and red dart through the air--birds, charging musically at each other in pairs in what I assume--or probably simply project--is a display of courtship.
I pause to listen and take note of the multiplicity of birdsong around me. In the past few months I've heard only the caws and honks of crows and geese. But now there are warbles and squeaks, pips and stutters, hoots and trills. And then, just as I begin to continue walking back toward the center of the cemetery, I am frozen dead in my tracks: a herd--almost a stampede--of white-tailed deer hurry in a flash across the path not twelve feet in front of me. Two dozen or more charging down a slope to my right and continuing down into a valley to my left, crossing what must be fifty feet or more in a matter of seconds. I stand stock still, dumbfounded in the proverbial headlights.
Until the thrum of a woodpecker shakes me aware again and I keep walking. Out the gates and back onto the street. Back among the herd.
2 comments:
I'm struck in this entry by all the contrasts, between degradation and beauty, silence and birdsong, solitude and presence. There is a sense of impending change in your observations, as if you're on the verge of discovery. I especially adore how you've noted that: "It's as if the cemetery is just at the end of a long exhale, almost ready to draw its bright green breath again." The cemetery and so much more, I think.
A wonderful entry, Lee. You cover a lot of ground, but find the perfect balance between contemplating deeper, darker topics like graves set out for people still very much alive, to feeling caught "in the proverbial headlights" in the presence of the whitetail deer. I've been noticing the deer around too, as well as birds beyond crows and geese. Sometimes the ground seems to be alive with robins scuffling through last fall's leaves.
I like how you end your entry, too, noting you're headed "back to the herd." I feel like there's a lot of reflection surrounding this, and I'd love to hear more of your thoughts, wherever they may stray.
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