We can attempt to teach the things that one might imagine the earth would teach us: silence, humility, holiness, connectedness, courtesy, beauty, celebration, giving, restoration, obligation and wildness.
David Orr from "Earth in Mind"

Jul 24, 2008

Graveyard

Graves 2

On Sunday Alder and I went for a long walk around town. It was hot and sticky out, but then it was hot and sticky in the house as well and at least outside there was a little bit of a breeze. There isn't really too much you can do in town unless the farmer's market is going on. The playground is a little too much of a walk and part of it is on a busy road with no sidewalk. So we headed up to Old Bennington since, well it's there.

Once we were there we ended up checking out the graveyard of the church, the oldest church in the state. It's sort of a pilgrimage spot, Robert Frost is buried there. I'm not a pilgrimage sort of person, at least not to someone's grave. Sure I'd love to see Sonia Delaunay's studio or visit Ghost Ranch, but I think grave visiting is about as inspirational as standing in line at the DMV.

That being said I do love graveyards and graves. Not in a morbid fashion. I just love looking at graves and imagining lives for all the people who lay in them. In college I found the grave of a woman who had died young, 23 or 4, named Isabella some time in the early 1800's I would often go and spend time on her grave imagining her life and sharing mine with her (silently of course). I also have a fascination with those big grave stones that house lots of people and mausoleums, they always feel as though there is some great mystery attached to them.

All this being said this past trip to the graveyard was a nice break from a hot sticky and boring day.



Azubah Haynes Payne


In a line


Graves detail

Graves 1



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

We are going to Ghost Ranch! It may be ten years from now when the kidlets are a bit more grown but we are seriously going. When I was in NM I was with her personal assistant who took care of her until she died. She, the assistant, is a poet who wrote mostly about O'keefe and the landscape of NM. I would look her up and we get an amazing tour. Let's Go!

Anonymous said...

P.S. I have a great Biography of O'keefe and Stieglitz that my mum gave to me. Wanna borrow it?