Encounter in a Small Old Cemetery
By Lenny Everson
rev 1
Copyright Lenny Everson 2011
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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?
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 ---