So many of them.
Their stones no different than the others.
Yet harshly different. They sleep so quietly.
I contemplate them one by one.
M.S.---G.G.---B.S.---E.M.
I visit H.K. below.
Entire lives crushed into initials.
I want to give them more.
(St. Peters United Church of Christ, West Pikeland Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania)
..."I want to give them more."
ReplyDeleteYou just did Jason, you just did. Us too.
My dear, they have more than some - whose mortal memory has been erased in storm and lost in flood from the fields where they lay.
ReplyDeleteI love the pix....it conveys a mixture of emotions....well done, my friend.
ReplyDeletebeautiful yet so sad. you gave them more with your words.
ReplyDeleteYesterday they had a funeral in Pascagoula here for 2 hurricane victims, a man and woman. No one knows who they were, they were not able to identfy them. There was about 50 people showed up for the funerals when they laid them to rest. It makes me wonder will someone some day take a picture of their gravestones and wonder who they were. Will someone give them more?? So Jason you did give them more by taking the picture and writing beautiful words to go with it.
These are nice. Somebody cared enough about them to pay the stonecutter for the initials. I like the initial ones for some reason. I presume the year is the year of death.
ReplyDeleteErik, thanks for the sentiment. Perhaps just seeing them does make a difference.
ReplyDeleteBernita, those are the tragic cases. Those are the ones who've already been erased. But, of course, it is how we're all doomed to be. Nothing is truly permanent.
Robin, thanks for talking the walk with me.
BeadinggalinMS, unknown victims...how very sad. At least those 50 people paid their respects. The victims didn't have to go down into the darnkess alone.
Mindy, yes, the bottom stone is one of the folk stones laid in 1775. For the field stones, this amount of carving is actually a lot. A great number of those stones are merely blank markers sunk into the ground.
The line "crushed into initials" just blew me away. And you have given them something more by posting this here. :-)
ReplyDeleteVery nice.
Read your short story over at FicMusings, too - very well done!!!
"Entire lives crushed into initials.
ReplyDeleteI want to give them more."
This observation shows more reverence than some eulogies I've heard.
You have an eye for images Jason, images that resonate. Beautiful, as always.
ReplyDeleteVery nice. And nicely said.
ReplyDeleteMelissa, I know their markers still stand, but it almost seems worse than being lost to time. They don't even have a name.
ReplyDeleteMermaid, thank you for the heartfelt compliment.
Sandra, images that resonate. What a great way to express it! That is exactly what I try to capture. A resonance with something deep inside us.
Dana, :)
Did the weather wear away the writing on the others? It's barely there.
ReplyDeleteTanya
Tanya, the angle of the picture can be tough to see, but each of those four stones have strongly carved initials in them. Nothing else was done on the stones. Also, they aren't the only ones. It was just striking to find a group of four like that.
ReplyDelete