marymcl

I like cemeteries. That admission usually elicits raised eyebrows and I accept the fact that most people do not share my benevolent regard for the long homes of the dead. Nevertheless, the feeling has always been with me and there is nothing morbid about it. I’m not preoccupied with death, neither do I harbor any desire to shock or upset the living. The simple truth is I feel at home and at ease in graveyards.

Pondering the reasons for this, I suppose my childhood exposure to the fatalism of Italian relatives and neighbors has something to do with it. When I was growing up, funerals occurred nearly as often as weddings or christenings, and all were part and parcel of the social life of the neighborhood. Circumstances also forced me to come to grips with death at an early age. By the time I was twenty-one, I had lost eight friends to violent death, and during the next five years I would lose three more. Yet these are rationalizations after the fact and do not explain what draws me to these places year after year, even when I have no particular reason for going. I like cemeteries for their sense of history and the tangible connection they provide with those who've come and gone before us. I like their peace and quiet; they are among the few remaining places within the urban landscape where one can escape the constant presence of popular music, traffic and the self-absorbed yakking of cell phone users. More than this, they may be the last vestige of sacred space in contemporary life.

Not all cemeteries are alike, of course, and some are less memorable than others. I am thinking now of one in Paramus, New Jersey that allows no standing stones, only small rectangular plaques that lie flush to the ground, with wide avenues for easy automobile access. This is probably meant to offer a cheerful contrast to the traditionally somber atmosphere that so many people dislike about such places, and viewed from across the road, there is nothing apart from the sign at the entrance to give away the fact it is a burial ground. Presumably this appeals to those who are embarrassed or uncomfortable when confronted with obvious reminders of death, but I prefer graveyards that don't try to hide what they are. Throughout the northeastern United States there are many small churchyard burial grounds with graves dating back to the 17th century. There is something deeply moving about these places, with their melancholy trees and weathered stone markers bearing half-legible inscriptions, many of which have settled over the centuries at drastic angles, scattering across the ground like an aging giant’s loose teeth. Here the sense of other lives long past is close at hand and it is easy to feel the presence of something greater than ourselves, yet still accessible and human.

"The grave's a fine and private place", according to an old poet whose name I can't remember, and the finest graveyard of all is the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded and consecrated in 1831, it was the first public space in North America to be landscaped on a large scale, and one would have to search far and wide to find a more beautiful park. Unlike modern cemeteries, which tend to favor flat and open ground, Mt. Auburn is a hilly arboretum dotted with lakes and ponds and crossed by dozens of paths that meander through disheveled gardens and sheltered woodland glades. One could easily spend a few days there and not see it all. The cemetery is also a bird sanctuary and one of the pamphlets available at its entrance lists over two hundred species, both resident and migratory, to be found within its confines. It is designated a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of Interior and among its numerous monuments and markers can be found the graves of many artists and writers: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Winslow Homer, Francis Parkman and scores of others. It was my particular good fortune while visiting Mt. Auburn to witness an event that captured in miniature the basic truth of life and death in nature that modern urban culture tries so desperately to keep at bay.

Looking back, it seems fitting that this happened while I was lost in thought beside Longfellow’s grave, which sits on a promontory overlooking one of the main roads through the cemetery. I have always admired Longfellow, not only for his poetry but also his scholarship. His poem Hiawatha was inspired by his reading of the Finnish epic Kalevala (and it occurs to me as I write this that death plays a major role in both works). He was also the first translator of Dante into English, and while standing at his grave I couldn’t help musing over the story that he had undertaken that task following the death of his wife, finding consolation and solace in the medieval poet's tale of eternal life and transcendent love. In the midst of these reveries I was distracted by some commotion nearby, something flashing past the corner of my eye as if it had fallen from the trees above. A few yards away, a boy was pointing excitedly to the road below, and following his direction I saw a red-tailed hawk. It had just killed a squirrel and was getting down to the business of eviscerating its prey.

I was determined to get a closer look and crept slowly down the hill, taking care to stay hidden behind the nearby headstones. I managed to get within twenty feet of the hawk, something that would have been impossible in the wild, and not trusting my luck to get any closer, I hunkered down behind a stone cairn. There I spent the next hour or so watching the two animals. Birds of prey have fascinated me for years, though I’d only rarely seen them in flight and never on the ground outside a zoo. Nevertheless, nothing I’d read about them prepared me for the reality of seeing one up close and uncaged. It was huge, with deep russet plumage crossed with darker bands of brown and black on wings that stretched nearly five feet across. Its talons, each one the size of a man’s hand, had pinioned the squirrel on its back just a few yards from the road. Occasionally a car would pass, and at one point a noisy work crew came walking by, but the hawk was completely absorbed in its task and paid no attention. Neither did I. All my senses were caught by the drama in front of me: the rustle of the hawk's partially outspread wings, the stillness of the animal beneath it, the smell of the damp autumn ground. It is an extraordinary feeling to be in the presence of such a powerful creature and to witness something so fundamental to existence yet rarely seen anymore.

Eventually nothing remained of the squirrel but its head and its outstretched pelt. By that time my joints had begun to ache, and I got up very slowly and walked over to the road. My intention was to nonchalantly stroll away, but as I passed the spot where the two animals were, I couldn’t resist turning to take a last look. To my shock and surprise the hawk paused in its labors and looked right back at me. Our eyes met and in that moment I felt acutely aware of how helpless and ignorant we are in the face of nature and its necessities, but also how privileged I was to have witnessed these two creatures, on that day, in that place. Something told me not to linger and I turned away, feeling strangely elated, and at the same time small and insignificant. Somehow it all felt completely appropriate to the place. I had seen death on its home ground and even looked into the eye of its messenger, but the experience left me with a humbling sense of gratitude: for the day, for the life and death I had witnessed, and for my own life and the lives of those I love. I still count myself lucky to have been there.

Sunday, October 10, 2010