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To walk or tramp about; to gad, wander. < Old French - trapasser (to trespass).

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Cemetery Poetry (2):  Hunger for a ‘Vaya con Dios’

September 11, 2022 4 Comments

We were standing in the street loading last bundles for a road trip when our good neighbor, Patrick, ambled over to bid us a ‘Vaya con dios’.  But before bestowing his godspeed he offered an aside.  It is these casual asides that turn out to be treasures of insight. He had been to a memorial gathering to say farewell to a friend gone too soon, he said.  A stalwart Presbyterian (are there any other kind?), Patrick stood in the rank of family and friends at the graveside, beside that well where thoughts wander the great yonder.

The minister addressed the barest lines to the bereaved, announced that refreshments would be served at the church hall, and dismissed the mourners.  There was no liturgy.  No sacred writ.  No hymn or scrap of prayer.  No poetry worthy of the breath.  A clergy collar was the merest hint that grieving souls had met to salute a passing ‘cross the great divide.

South Park Street Cemetery, Kolkata, India.  No one need ask if this 250 year old burial ground of British colonial times is haunted.  It is.  Now largely abandoned except for the curious and the scholarly, it contains the remains of thousands of expatriates many in their 20s and 30s.  The architecture suggests grandiose
 aspirations not fully attained.  Now the lush vegetation begs to soften what were regrettable times.  The quiet marked by birdsong midst a vast, bustling city is extraordinary.  photo credit: Giridhar Appaji Nag.     
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park_Street_Cemetery

As attenders scattered in bewilderment, a friend turned to Patrick to ask about the minister, ‘Hasn’t he been to cemetery school?’  In the moment it expressed a longing for some shred of dignity, some solace or aspiration, some acknowledgement of sorrow.  There is something, after all, about that moment beside freshly turned earth that begs for the whisper of wings.

About that whimsical question. It cuts a wide swath, is worth taking home. ‘Been to cemetery school?  A rich venue, that.  And whatever its murmured wisdom for the living – even just a ‘vaya con dios’ – it will dawn with lyric touch and comfort.    

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Written by Jonathan Larson

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Cemetery Poetry: The Place Where They Sleep

More from India

Monuments to Love: the ‘Taj’

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Cemetery Poetry – 3: Laying To Rest A Shade And Its Transport

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Daryl Martin says

    September 11, 2022 at 2:30 pm

    Thank you Jonathan! Your words pave a sacred path of insight to the uniqueness and poignancy of the moments in this our human experience. I’m appreciative.

    Reply
    • Jonathan Larson says

      September 11, 2022 at 7:58 pm

      Hello, Daryl! What a pleasure to find your note here! Thanks for checking in on the blog. We’re bereft that we have left the good folk in Berne so far behind in our rear view mirror. It’s time for a traipse to return to roots in NE Indiana, and to the place where our forbearers are remembered!

      Reply
  2. Carol Ulrich says

    September 13, 2022 at 9:38 am

    Jonathan – thank you! You are a writer par excellence.

    When you traipse our way, give us a call. Carol

    Reply
    • Jonathan Larson says

      September 13, 2022 at 9:57 am

      Hello, Carol! How kind of you! Mary Kay and I read poetry every morning at breakfast – most recently some Marianne Moore. It gives me something to aim for! I think it was Christina Rossetti who wrote somewhere, ‘Does the road lead upward all the way? Yes, upward, all the way.’

      Reply

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