This is a new years story in three acts ...print and read at leisure
Dead
Awful
Act one
We have been working graves on the gulf
coast for two weeks now. The coast in winter can be surprisingly warm with
temperatures reaching the 60’s and even
70’s.
Last week we had miserable wind and cold
rain but this week has been picture perfect blue with bright sun and warm
zephyrs of breeze filtering inland
from the Gulf. .
The salt air sparkles .It drifts through the trees and
picks up the musky fragrances of
yew, cypress and the oil of Lebanese cedar making ones nostrils to flare
and drink in its vigorous aroma of oil, wood, sun and salt
air.
By noon the sun reaches its zenith .Its light penetrates through the palms
and cuts slashes of canary
yellow across the
backs of the black gravediggers who toil the soft sandy loam in waist deep pits
. . . . .
They work steadily and silently each one raising and lowering his pick in
tandem providing perfect muffled rhythm to the sweet serenade of Cardinal and
Bullfinch overhead
Gray and grizzled the black men work the
graves expertly; one wears a tattered tweed coat and the other a collarless
white shirt and stained waist jacket. Pick and shovel, they work the ground,
exposing the corbelled walls of the
ancient crypts. .
. Scene two
Like most mornings it’s quiet here. Our
clients; who are asleep for a century or more never seem to mind. Here, there is
no sound of commerce, no noise of traffic, no quarrel against time. Here, it
seems most everyone has time…lots of it and luckily for us some more so than
others.
Every morning we hear the scrape of the mud
pan and the calls for “Mo” mortar.
The mud man wipes his brow then labors with
his rake and shovel turning the mass of coarse sand and hydraulic lime into the
sticky alchemical cheese called mortar.
When nicely turned its ready. Then he covers
it with wet burlap until it’s called for.
Above the birdsong and the scrape of the pan
comes the distant play of the trucks radio Some 30’s Bessie Smith comes
lamenting through the palms.
“Wa-dah “Wa-dah round mah do ,
Wa –dah , Wa-dah round mah do
.
Her Blues resonates with the land here,
everyone these seasons had “Wadah “not only by “the do” but also in many cases through
“ the do” and even overtop the house.
The storms, wicked and menacing as they were
; are natural to this land
. Since all mother nature is doing is trying
to do is reclaim what once was hers
for millions of years ,. ..
.
Katrina efforts were no exception . Her message was so powerful that it affected the
living and the dead ; and so that’s
why we are here
Katrina’s power toppled trees leaving
granite mausoleums smashed like
pumpkins ,
The falling limbs tore open graves and
allowed the wind and the water to carry off the dead in absurd little crafts made of the flotsam of nature
.
Little
bones could be seen floating by balled together with eelgrass , molded
clothing branches ,sticks ,plastic
and the rotten remains of coffins
The larger bones of course would sink and scatter with the
tidal
surge.
Incoherent jumbles would be discovered in
the trunks of trees. resting on paths .or waiting for a ride near the parking
lot ..
What damage the storms didn’t do, vines from
the roots of overgrown Jasmine and Magnolia did .
Strangling the ground, these powerful vines snake their way around statuary and pry
open crypt covers with the
slightest of ease .
Coming in after them were the ever present
colonies of rats ,feral cats ,and the slow moving armadillo who made their homes into comfy dens by digging out the bones and scattering them
about like unwanted toys in a Childs nursery
.
Since mother nature finds uses for everything, it is not uncommon to
find holiday homes of birds nests ,squirrel nests , fox holes , and crab holes
that have all been cleverly done up with tibias, pieces of rib and or a clavicle or
two.
Hauntingly beautiful the homes are prolific ; they dwell in
the shade of the Spanish moss that
hangs so eerily from gnarly live
oaks , Winters white sun filters
through its tangled nets
casting web like
shadows over the tombs and white sand
..
Wild English and Confederate rose
abound everywhere as do Carolina
Jasmine and honey suckle .
Tombstones of white marble ,lean or are toppled , and even some are
encased in trees that have grown around them
.Obelisks , broken collums,,and monoliths dot the horizon and a tall Victorian spiked fence or wrought iron separates the living from the dead ,in
this wild garden of 40 acres.
.
Stone by stone , and bone by bone we attempt
at putting them all back ; but like the wind
some are gone to eternity.
.