It was one of those days when everything is beautiful.

Our graveyard features tall spreading oaks.

Linking heaven and earth.

My daily walk along the bike path

Runs along the edge of that cemetery.

The path follows the one laid down

By a railroad that took passengers to the edge of the ocean.

It much quieter now without the traffic of the railroad.

Now the dead have the company of dogs and children.

And older walkers like me

Who make their way around the tombstones.

I used to walk here for my health.

The elderly should keep moving, the doctors advise.

But these days I greet the deceased

Not as ghosts but instead as

My interred neighbors.

Sharing our place on our earth together

If not our time.

Each gravestone tells a story.

I read their names and say them aloud.

And before I complete the word

An image comes together in my mind.

Ebenezer – Ah. To live with that name.

Mercy and her husband, Pardon. 

Elijah and his son, Elijah

Gideon

Anizetta

Freelove

Wager 

Phineas and his sister, Lillian

Minnie

“Kook”

Matilda

Caleb and older brother, Isaac.

Quickly, I am in a village and am walking in a community.

Perhaps, they know each other or know their families.

Maybe, they played cards or went to church last night. 

Maybe, they married the pretty girl next door.

All these names have disappeared.

Their flair and fashion and folly

A lost generation of characters

Down near the river are newer graves.

I see that the Mellors lost two children.

A baby and a toddler

I feel their sorrow.

Children died the years my siblings were born.

I find a memorial for another child.

Dead not more than two years.

The boy’s parents have made a shrine.

Of toy cars and little figures

Solar lights in each corner to keep the boy safe at night.

I find a large tombstone at the top of the hill

At the foot of the huge oak

A monument to Doctor Robinson

A great man it seems on this scale.

In bold letters, I see his birthday and birthplace.

I see as well the dates and place of his death.

I see that he served in the War.

Near the base of the stone I see

“Devoted wife” and beneath that

Eli……

Mud and grass have erased those traces of his wife.

Her name buried in the dirt.

Perhaps, if he had one less accomplishment

There would have been room for her.

Tomorrow I will bring a spade and reveal  

Her place and time to the world.

It matters to no one else this clearing

Away of mud and earth.

Neither does it matter to anyone else that I 

Have made these friends in the graveyard.

But to feel these connections means everything to me.

I have long renounced a cemetery plot of my own

Thinking about the burden of a grave for my loved ones

Maybe, they’d feel a need to visit. 

Just now, I am rethinking this resolution.

Allowing the idea to take root in my mind. 

I don’t need to be remembered but

I do need to rest with my neighbors and friends.