They call them “forget-me-nots,” As though anyone who perceives color could Scrub that shade of blue from retinal cones.
But here among these mountains— Where only three or four months pass between snows— You must catch bees’ eyes early and often.
Together with campion, King’s crown, sky pilot, clover, stonecrop, wallflower, They quilt tundra; fight winter’s memory.
All these lay low, clasping rock, With moss, grass, and scrub spruce blending a backdrop, To offset color, hold soil, nourish elk.
But like one keeping the watch, Alpine sunflower braces against west winds Burning bright as lightning in driving rain.
They say its blooms face the east, To protect their golden discs from violent storms. But why rise from the frost and crane hoary necks Toward the rising sun if not every day Looking for a long-awaited visit Or coyly expecting resurrection?
Image: Alpine meadow, Rocky Mountain National Park. Larimer County, Colo., July 2022.
A version of this piece was published in Fathom Magazine, September 2021.
We live next to a cemetery. Not merely nearby or down the street, but directly at the end of the driveway, visible out the kitchen window. And not an old family plot, either, but a commercial cemetery complete with a two-story mausoleum building.
Sometimes it’s a source of humor. When new guests ask what it’s like having such a property next door, my standard response is “At least the neighbors are quiet.” After windstorms, we pick the shredded remains of silk flowers from our backyard fence.
Occasionally it’s an opportunity for embarrassment, like when I rev up the lawnmower only to roll around the fence to the stares of indignant mourners at a graveside service.
Whenever it’s not raining, it’s a shady place to break from the day for a quick walk or pacing phone conversation—all the more so during the past 14 months of working mostly from home.
In the winter months, when the sun’s angle has tilted toward the southern horizon, it is the foreground of an almost daily flash of blinding beauty at the edge of the night.
In the spring, the trees fill with bluebirds, flickers, flycatchers, and robins, and the tombstones become battlements for feral cats attempting to make a meal of any of the above, or fighting with one another for territorial supremacy. Its wooded lower slopes have played host to broods of red fox kits, more than one nest of red-tailed hawks, a clutch of barred owl eggs, and even a litter of coyote pups—all this in the middle of a semi-urban area of a mid-sized metro.
Always, the cemetery is present. A patient, faithful memento mori that demands not to be ignored or passed off as a mere park. When you do stop and look, as I’ve been compelled to do for the past 13-and-a-half years of living here, that memento grows sharper still, telling stories of demise with a painful specificity that cuts across many walks of life.
At the top of the hill are the original burials, capped by weathered granite obelisks with barely visible names and dates, the oldest of which mark the resting place of people born over 200 years ago. Civil War veterans and even those who never lived long enough to see the battles that raged just a mile away in 1863 share the high ground.
Further down, on the side adjacent to the road, large, more ornate markers shining with glaze blare out the names of prominent citizens of our town—names that also signify many of our streets, parks, and buildings. Undoubtedly many of these were good men and women, but whatever services they rendered or businesses they built did not stop the passing of time that brought them here. Their personalities, triumphs, and trials fade as surely as the moss and diesel soot slowly unburnish their stones.
The new mausoleum is, as yet, mostly uninhabited by the deceased. There are a few scattered along the back wall, cheaper than the side visible to the road, and some cremated remains tucked in the specially designed corner slots. Most of the plaques denote pre-purchases, unclosed date-dashes extolling the financial prudence of a city councilman here, a dentist there, and the widow of a recently interred husband in the adjacent hollow.
When you get to individual graves amid the crab-grassed rows, the dead begin to speak their wisdom more directly.
The shared tomb of a husband and wife tells of sorrow and separation. He died in 1947, while she—were the headstone speaking true—is still roaming the earth today at the age of 151. More likely, she had to leave home when widowed, passing away in another place, her family unable to bear the cost to have her body delivered back here to be interred with her spouse’s.
A marker for a young woman of 23 who died in 1935 curiously bears her maiden name, along with a note that she was the wife of her husband—presumably a newlywed unable to afford the stone and honoring her parents (who could) by retaining their family name. Perhaps she died trying to bring a child into the world or from some then-incurable infection. The inscription below testifies to this grieving widower’s character and presence of mind, and never fails to catch my attention: “The Lord gave. He took. He doeth all things well.”
Under one of the sprawling willow oaks, a swath of tiny marble lambs mark the children’s section. Headstones of dozens of infants, toddlers, and stillborn children, some whose birthdays was their death-day, offer a solemn reminder that death plays no favorites. Such losses seem foreign to our age of NICUs, pediatric surgery, and antibiotics, but surely remain all too present for those who have endured pregnancy losses, without the funeral and the lamb to silently invite the rest of us to share in grief and support.
The cemetery itself is part of the ballad, its general disrepair a steady bass note. A few years ago, the family who founded it in 1847 either sold the property or outsourced its management (it’s not quite clear which is actually the case). Now, it’s not uncommon for a month or more to pass between mowings, or for storm-downed tree limbs to lay across paths and markers for weeks. Leaves go unraked, brush is piled in plain sight, and fill dirt left over from recent burials is mounded 3-4 feet high at the top of the hill. Some graves are still well-tended by survivors who bring new flowers with each season, but many markers have cracked or fallen over, with no one among the living able to muster enough concern to repair them. Even cemeteries must someday die.
I’m not going to tie this up into a simple sermon on how to value each day as though it could be your last (though each of my neighbors would attest that it certainly could). Consider it instead an invitation to see what is preaching to you from your own backyard, if you’ll stop rushing by long enough to look. Soak in the wide shot and the closeups and attend to the director’s framing. Dust you are, and to dust you will return, but between your forming and decay, a world of wonders beckons.
Leaves and branches, Oscilloscopes tracing Wind from gathering storms, Taunt my habit Of hunting curses under each blessing And copping exhaustion To avoid getting the shakes From a momentary lapse Of despair. Sunlight Always gets me down, Keeping me inside lest It warm my eyelids and ask me to rest In a dangerously peaceful grace.
I’m not sure I know How to say something earnest when nothing is weighing me down, Not sure how to speak An uplifting word Without the ashes Of profanity Clinging to my tongue. There is a way of seeking joy That requires Gouging out one’s eyes, And I like looking Too much to try it, Even on sale.
It’s easier to look For beauty in the dark, Glowing brighter the farther from What is plainly seen. If I learned to listen A little more To the upbeat bass line Throbbing beneath The frantic tenor Of making ends meet, Maybe I’d have A little more Levity though I’d speak less.
That’s when I start to laugh, Catching the joke That fear is only joy Hiding behind Something we will not understand Until it passes us by. This is what the trees Tried to say when In the early morning They stood, still and bronzed In the rosy mist, But I couldn’t hold A smile long enough To muster robust thanks.
Now that they scratch One another and flail Before the advance Of autumn air, I see plainly what comeliness The failing light wants to hide Where the glimmer is weakest. How carelessly we fall Back into hope. So little a splash Of fuel on a smoldering wick Sets a lamp flickering, for you Cannot burn out What had never been lit.
Image: Clouds and trees in slanted light, my front yard in Tennessee, August 2020.
“Some are born in their place, some find it, some realize after long searching that the place they left is the one they have been searching for. But whatever their relation to it, it is made a place only by slow accrual, like a coral reef.” —Wallace Stegner
You were floating by fast when I caught you, Gave you a place to anchor and watched you Begin to call your home into being. All you needed for it you brought with you, So I left you to it, and before I knew it, We were cemented together here, Securely as the roots of the mountains.
I wonder where you came from and Where you might have gone without me. I wonder what great ships you could Have beached somewhere else, though who knows What our children’s children might see Come to pass right here, in this place Where we’ve been set, accreting life.
A little carbon and calcium Is all it takes to move heaven and earth Around ourselves and find a niche that works, Amid vast, acidifying oceans. But of all the polyps in all the reefs In all the world, just this spot was prepared For your unmapped geography of hope.
Image: Crystalline Iceplant, Santa Barbara County, Calif., June 2019.
Hardscrabble 