Tonight, I sped over a black vein, out into the country, to the cemetery that is held between two highways. I turned off the headlights and walked through wet grass, while trucks tore past me in the dark, and the sky showed off in silver star boasts. I sat over rotting flesh and dust decaying bones, hot drink sipping, following the path of satellites with my eyes. And the air was turning leaves death, and the sky was the afterlife, and I lay on the grass, stretched out, so that I could see nothing of my body, so that I was bodyless - only eyes, only vision, so then, only thought - and I thought, of how a burial is a backwards planting and death a blossoming. And I imagined the mystery of the green shoot, slicing through dried husk, and the consumed remains that remain in the dirt. And I stayed, pinned, to the green ground, like a moth to a piece of cork, watching lights that were born on this planet, travel in circles around heaven, while the bodies that set free those lights, remained behind, below, earthbound.
And then, the grass grew too wet, the ghosts too loud, and God too unknowable. So I tripped back to the car, the heat and light, and rode the black vein, home.
Thanks Ann.
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4 comments:
For me, my one particular cemetery is a place where the past (dead family members), the present (my joyful life as well as my grief) and the future (my own death) come together very powerfully. Your lovely words show that a cemetery is a living thing.
ann,
cemeteries and sanctuaries are to me, one of those few places in my experience that knock me over with their, um, thickness. do you know what i mean? there is no way to gloss over these places, and my heart always get sucked right into the depths of what they signify.
i love (?) spending time in cemeteries, but haven't in almost a year. your post reminded me of that.
Cemetaries. They seem to flood and try the words we use to know them. The word itself is like a giant overfilled dam, about to burst with the full meaning of the ritual ground.
alex,
the picture i posted on may 9th is of a flooded cemetery i rode past this spring. you made me think of it, and this: "the earth shook and the rocks split. the tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people." mt:27:52-53.
when i saw that flooded cemetery, i kept expecting the coffins to come popping up, and dead people to start jabbering at me about jesus.
breezy/twin,
dig.
i'm glad we're new pals, too! though, i have the distinct feeling that you're the nice twin who is sweet and patient with people, while i'm the one with the furrowed brow, mumbling about how much i hate bad coffee and wondering why the hell i can't remember where i put my car keys.
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