Encounter in a Small Old Cemetery

Encounter in a Small Old Cemetery

  By Lenny Everson

  rev 1

  Copyright Lenny Everson 2011

  This free ebook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration, and the reader is not charged to access it.

  Cover design by Lenny Everson

  ****

  Note:

  A few years ago Dianne and I were driving through farm country when I saw a small graveyard in the middle of a field, with a few trees around it. We walked to it, and found a dozen or so markers of a family that had lived and died over a century ago.

  Later I wrote a poem about a person who decides to visit such a graveyard in October near midnight, in hopes of seeing a ghost. He stumbles across the field as a storm approaches.

  I've got to tell you that he sees only parts of what might be a ghost - not a very satisfying result, and then retreats to his car.

  That's all.

  Prologue

  It’s a strange old universe -

  We probe intergalactic depths

  Clinging to chocolate, tea, and

  Solid ground

  In this almost-winter darkness

  Of a Canadian October.

  It’s a strange old planet;

  I searched all my life

  For something that was more

  Than what it seemed, my theology

  Empty as last week’s Tim Horton’s cup

  Among the road weeds.

  One day I heard

  A story

  Of a graveyard

  In a field.

  ***

  No lights but the moon, and even

  Hanover’s a memory and now twenty minutes

  Away, here on a Wednesday night.

  No lights but the car dash, the whisper

  Of the heater, life in the motor.

  I kill it all with the turn of a key. The silence

  Of field and farm overwhelms.

  What the hell am I doing here? Half a

  Rumour of ghosts, half a life in running

  Halfway lost, halfway lost.

  A cornfield by the road, at or near

  The middle of the night.

  The whisper of cornhusks.

  Far out in the field, a few trees, a

  Tiny cemetery, old iron gates

  Willows and weeds.

  Willows and weeds, probably all.

  The car door is a barrier. My heart is another.

  I can deal with one, I guess.

  Journey

  The willows are swaying , their

  Legendary branches sweeping sea sounds

  Into the growing darkness.

  The storm is distant, but coming, a tide of air,

  Cold and full of terrible and

  Falling

  leaves.

  And I think, night wind is not

  day wind, it has blackness in its soul and desolation in its

  heart and winter as its

  holy grail.

  And it cares not for me, nor ever can,

  nor ever will, however I

  want it to.

  I crawl up the bank, my leather

  jacket inadequate for the ocean swell of nightwind and my boots

  wet from crossing the ditch.

  They said I was born to the wind, but that was a lie of

  cavernous proportions.

  I know that now.

  If I could speak willow,

  I would speak willow.

  If I could speak wind,

  I would speak wind.

  But I would rather speak in whispers to all the lost loves of my life

  than speak to the night. I

  don't ever want to speak

  to the

  night.

  There is a moon, but it sails among willow branches, and I've forgotten

  all the things I told it when I was too little to see over the window sill

  and too big to stay in my bed in an October

  windstorm.

  Far away, lightning. Closer, the lights of a

  farm building, only a field or

  two fields away.

  The moon is far,

  the farm, far, but the

  family in that farm farther than the moon to

  me.

  The graveyard is in the middle of that field,

  surrounded by trees.

  I am in the middle of that field, under the trees, at the edge of

  eternity and

  an old iron fence.

  Is this what love comes to?

  Old iron,

  old stone,

  the resurrection of trees and the

  blasphemy of willow roots?

  They loved and were loved,

  breathed and sat in the moonlight and felt the

  fall leaves and the

  chill on their necks and what was it all for but the nourishment of fibrous willow roots

  fondling the decaying tibia?

  The gate is ajar. Cold-footed and

  wide-eyed, I push through long grass and

  brittle weeds.

  Never plant willow beside a grave; it is far too fond of people.

  I make a nest in the grass and lean against

  stone.

  No-one complains.

  In my head, I feel the pressure falling as leaves

  scuttle to hiding

  like fish under a

  dock.

  A galaxy away, a dog barks three or four times. The moon is

  gone, perhaps behind the

  cloud, perhaps to sit on the

  beach in Cancun, smelling of tanning oil and

  eating layered orange cake with a bizarre iced

  drink beside it.

  It is as dark as the day I found out

  the truth about the truth,

  but I don't want to think about that.

  Now,

  or

  ever.

  It is one marine forecast

  no sailor wants to hear.

  It's been a life.

  I have walked alpine trails above the timberline,

  I have shopped a store known for the best fish in town.

  I've walked in a parade,

  I've danced over the septic tank. Now I have come to this

  graveyard sitting at the edge of my desires,

  older than I thought I would ever be and

  still far, far, too

  young.

  It's getting cold.

  My feet are wet. There's a movement of white

  florescence, first at the corner of my eye, then

  in front of me, moving into the ground and

  out again, then settling.

  A shirtsleeve appears, then is gone, then an

  eye and some hair.

  The willows thresh like

  mad painters, and my blood runs hot.

  Were you a life, I ask the

  thing. Did you come to this graveyard full of

  desires like presents

  that would never be unwrapped?

  Are you old now, and forever

  young?

  Did kittens make you

  happy and did you have a swing in the yard in

  summer?

  Did God show you the

  truth of the universe and did you flee in

  terror back to the fields

  where you chased butterflies?

  Or did you simply refuse to

  leave, fearing there would be no warm

  pumpkin pie in

  Heaven?
r />   The ground rises up and a willow branch falls

  through the light, which does not

  waver more or less.

  The dog barks, far away, and a bit of rain

  falls cold on this shoreline where air touches

  trees and water reaches for the

  ground and life and death are

  too, too close together.

  I shift in my nest and my back feels

  stone, cold as

  God's heart at Easter.

  My vertebrae complain and someone spills a

  box of matches onto my

  kidneys.

  The canyon of the

  darkness of death has a ditch that is lined with

  willows.

  If you find yourself there, build a small boat.

  Ignore the wind, however it whispers to you.

  I am standing, but the light is getting smaller.

  Stone and cold rusty iron are

  dead and were always dead.

  The weeds and the leaves are part of the once-living.

  I watch the fading light flicker.

  A foot appears at the bottom,

  and fades.

  A hat

  comes and goes at the top.

  Is this what love comes to? Old iron,

  old stone, the falling of leaves and the

  tenderness of willow roots?

  They seem like the moonlight in the fall leaves and they shed a chill on the

  tourists who would only talk if they could.

  My beliefs are in the middle of a field,

  fragile as trees in the winds of

  October.

  At the edge of eternity and an old iron fence,

  the rain starts, stops.

  I am in the middle,

  I am in the middle.

  I am at edges

  and cliffs, and a star

  peeks out between violent clouds and

  I wonder what it means and if it means

  anything at all.

  Suddenly, the moon is there, and

  closer than ever.

  The farm lights appear, farther than ever.

  The dog barks, an old enemy I first fought in

  Babylon, or in some cave where the eyes of

  lions sparkled in the firelight.

  I watch the reborn moon; it sails among

  willow branches again, and I've remembered none of the

  things I told it when I was

  too little to see over the window sill and

  too big to stay in my bed in an October

  windstorm.

  I cannot speak to the dead, nor listen as they

  read the secrets of their lives, kept in notes in a

  pocket, folded and refolded in case

  anyone ever asks,

  the stories of all the lost loves

  of their lives.

  But the only one that listens is the

  night.

  Always the night and

  only

  the night.

  Do they know the truth? Or were it better I

  listen to the willows?

  I can do that.

  I've had practice.

  I crawl down the bank, my arteried cortex

  inadequate for the ocean swell of

  eternity and my boots thinking of

  crossing that ditch again.

  The moon shines cruelly, and the wind grows

  like a forest.

  And I think,

  this graveyard is not heaven; it has loss in its

  soul and

  tears in its heart and

  silence as its holy grail. And it cares not for me,

  nor ever can,

  nor ever will,

  however I want it to.

  The willows are swaying , their

  legendary branches sweeping sea sounds

  into the growing darkness.

  The storm is distant, falling away, a

  tide of air, cold and full of

  lost souls and

  falling leaves.

  Epilogue

  The car door opens onto my world.

  There is briefly, light.

  Across the field, those few trees embrace

  Stones, but the old iron gates bound only shade

  And shadow. Memories and weeds

  Willows and weeds.

  The cornhusks whisper of mornings and

  The only summer they ever knew.

  But night possesses me and

  The gravel road doesn’t go

  Where I want it to.

  What the hell am I doing here? Halfway

  Through some night, gravity-bound between earth and sky

  Pretending to life, pretending to pretend.

  The willows don’t tell me

  What I need to hear.

  I have a key. The radio comes on first.

  The motor lives, dead but alive

  Trading motion for love; I cherish

  The whisper of the heater.

  Headlights take the darkness and

  Motion consumes the road.

  Just ahead

  The highway, and

  The tumbling world

  The long path through

  Galactic night.

  Oh, God, in this small corner

  Of a small world.

  ----end ---