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Question: Have you ever visited an interesting cemetery!?
Family Cemetery
by C!.S!. Scotkin
In a clearing, a small meadow, cows come to graze
and ruminate as they have for near four hundred years!.
The number of cows is not what is was and the pasture is smaller
than I remember!. Not in memory alone, no, the stone walls
which once defined this space are now absorbed into the woods!.
In the center, a small hillock is embraced, sanctified
by a plain iron fence, woven with vines, bleeding hearts, morning glory!.
Strange and familiar to be here again!. Quiet, only the birds
announce my coming!. Look over the fence, I see the child I was, hiding with a book!.
No one looked for me in that place!.
Even then, a last refuge when escaping the world!.
I go in but leave the gate open!. Some stones are ancient,
others new!. All names are the same!. Mine!.
The indentured servant won his freedom, settled on this rocky place!.
The tree planted eight generations ago still bears fruit!.
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Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
You have chosen your words very well indeed, for cows do chew the cud quite literally, even while your poem's narrator does so rather more figuratively!. You capture nicely the sense of deja vu we have all experienced when revisiting a place from which we have long been absent!. Of course the place itself changes, but we change too, and this is above all a poem of interiority!. Hillocks are "embraced" and hearts are "bleeding," a reference not only to Dicentra spectabilus but to the human toll all who inhabit this city of stone have paid!. All names in this city are the same, because to be a part of this city is to have shared in one of the experiences common to all of humanity, given enough time!. The child who visits the cemetery may not understand this, but the returning adult, seeing the same thing through different eyes, has come to the end of a long journey that begins and ends at the same place, and now sees that place for the first time!. The very place that served as an escape for the child is now known to be an emblem, and reminder, of what can never be escaped, what binds all in a common humanity!. Thank you for a poem that is equally a triumph of understanding!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
This reads like a good book, it leaves you wanting to hear the rest!.I look forward to more of the same!. !.!.!.when my ashes are scattered to the oceans I will have the pleasure of knowing I will be sharing space with every living thing in the oceans and all that venture there!.!.!. I will stay cool and travel the world!.!.!. I will ride the waves and be swolllowed by great whales only to reappear again!.!.!. I won't ever be alone again!.!.!. my only regret is I won't be able to write of it!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
I like this one, and yes, I have visited many interesting cemeteries!. I used to have to take my mother to cemeteries all over the country in search of ancestral burial places and documentation!. Many of the old New England cemetaries hold my ancestors from the era of the revolutionary war, and beyond!. I have learned much in these travels, and after she discovered geneology web sites, I had to build her a computer so she could do a virtual visit and find much more info much faster!. She is gone now, for 2 years now, and was probably the fastest 2 finger 82 year old hacker in town!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
Very visual!. As a child, you were not afraid of the cemetery because it was part of your own history!. We, in the Western World find cemeteries frightening, but you found "a last refuge," a place to escape from daily troubles!. (I wish I knew my history; I can't get beyond my great-grandparents)!. Www@QuestionHome@Com
Yes, and you got it exactly right!!. As an amateur genealogist, I've visited many!.!.!.and never, never came away without a special feeling!. Saddened, however, at how many graves are unkempt and untended!. I always left a few flowers on those!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
How wonderful - to be able to have a standing history of your genealogy!.
Suggestion: check L3 - "The number of cows is not what is was" - needs some clarification!. Did you mean "not what it once was" !? ?Www@QuestionHome@Com
i thought it was beautiful your words are very inspiring keep writing you are doing magnificent and i hope to hear from u in the future
read my poem plz tell me what you think
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