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.  .