Spring in the Ancient Burying Ground
So much life in this subdivision of the dead.
Grass grows long, thickens and greens, dotted with buttercups, dandelions, and bluets that draw softly humming bees. Teakettle calls of Carolina wrens echo down the somber rows.
A mockingbird scolds atop an obelisk as a woodchuck scurries to its burrow.
And as you read the fate of me,
Think on the glass that runs for thee.
Soul effigies peer eerily, wings outstretched or upswept. They watch and follow as I pass, faces broad or narrow with smiles or frowns, eyes wide or closed, noses thin or bulbous, hair wavy or straight. Is character visible, or just the artistic skill that sculpted spirals, loops and rosettes?
To worms and reptiles made prey
Shall rise and shine at the great day. Chiseled words speak for the silent with names and dates embalming a moment, connecting me to distant worlds.
Octogenarians lie beside infants, and Revolutionary war soldiers, drowning and smallpox victims are near mothers who agonized in childbirth. Their rhyming couplets sing warnings. Stop kind reader and drop a tear on this cold dust that slumbers here.
Lichen splotches obscure inscriptions, brownstone flakes, marble darkens and melts, schist and slate erode erasing memory. No longer frozen in the legible afterlife of the living, perhaps spirits now freely ascend, leaving behind those weighted by large, elaborate monuments in perpetual care. As I am now so you must be
Prepare for death and follow me.
Breezes are breath of the dead, their voices in birdsong, a lasting presence in stars and sunshine. Opening a gate, I squeeze through a crack in time, blessed to wander in eternity and walk out, shoes dusted with yellowish pollen, spreading life from a land of the long dead.
Frog Run
Choruses of peepers sing an endless ringing chirp from a half-frozen swamp beyond the sugarbush. I harvest the last run before the sap goes sour.
For six weeks I’m a divining rod of fickle weather, both groundhog and shadow, the lifeblood of maples circulating within me. Now I’m bone-sore from a long season, pushing myself in deep zombied exhaustion.
Thousands of gallons hauled from trees to sugarhouse, only to drive most of it off in frenzied boils, churning with foam and large cauliflowered bubbles conjuring a Zen-like trance where less becomes so much more.
Sweet steam is my heaven-bound incense, the shack sauna-like with moisture and warmth, welcoming friends out of freezing winds and early dark. We chat away hours, the heart’s endearing trivialities opening without warning since boiling is made of time and listening. Clear liquid slowly thickens to golden, an alchemy of concentrated sunshine ripening the sugar-maker into spring.