Entered Into Rest…

I enjoy walking around in cemeteries. As many of you know, there's one that makes up the back landscape at my house and while it isn't a particularly large or spectacular cemetery, it's a wonderful place. I walk Oliver out there, always careful to keep him from bothering mourners or from leaving unpleasant remainders of his presence. With or without the dog, however, it's a wonderful place to explore and I feel like I find something new every time I go there. Sometimes it's the wildlife – there have been a couple of deer sighted, along with the countless crows and squirrels, meandering cats, and even the occasional groundhog. That's not all of it, though.

There's a sense of peace – a sad peace in some ways, but a peace nonetheless. Cemeteries are generally quiet and lovely – rolling hills and landscaping, towering trees and colorful flowers dancing in the breeze. I cannot ever separate myself from the countless tears that made the soil fertile, or the broken hearts that have seeped into every corner of these places, but there's also a gorgeous sense of history, a lingering tranquility, and an almost fervent celebration of life. For those who have left the markers of their loved ones here, they carry on in defiance of their loss. They visit these places not as a morbid reminder of what is gone – but rather a concrete marker of what will always live on. Our loved ones are never gone from us, we know this. So, we look for places where they have left their mark, or where we have built markers for them. And the markers can be so exquisitely beautiful.

Those who know me know that I am not a religious person. I don't much care for the message of religious institutions in a general sense, and so my relationship with the Divine has found its own Way. But that is not to say that I don't find beauty in churches and cathedrals, and in the markers we erect in these places that are intersection of life and death, permanence and passage, sorrow and joy, past and present, yesterdays and tomorrows. The upturned face of the weeping angel, the outstretched hands of Mary, the child enveloped in the arms of St. Anthony. So many beautiful carven images – so many dreams, wishes that when we leave this place, we are taken elsewhere, where there is love and peace and release from toil.

I love to read the names  – walking amongst the stones and reading messages and epithets that tell stories without telling them. Wife. Loving Husband. US Army. From County Cork. Infant child. Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal. So small, so sweet, so soon. Worn dates and faded names, moss growing on etched stone. These are powerful images and powerful places. Words of comfort and memory from those who are now nothing but memory themselves.

These souls are not my souls, these names are not my names – except they are. The story of human love and human suffering, etched in stone and surviving through the ages. A name here, a date there, a marble lamb, an angel with wings unfurled. Beauty and sadness rolled into one.

There is more to say, but there are pictures I want to share and words I want to get just right. I will go again…and I will write again.

I Like Birds...

We're at that time of the year when it's still cold, but there are birds returning to the trees and the skies and to those invisible places where they perch and sing until it sounds as if they will burst. I don't know where they are when they do this, sometimes, but it is enough just to hear them. Since we live near a lake, there are countless geese around, specifically. Now, I know that Canada Geese make messes and whatnot, but I still think they are fascinating and beautiful. I don't have to clean up after them, though, so that might make a difference. I've driven by the lake recently on a grey morning and noted that the lake was even grayer – dotted with what must have been hundreds of birds. Mostly geese, but with the occasional seagull poised among them visiting with its bigger cousins. I stopped and stood on the little deck that juts out from the gazebo and just looked at them. More were coming in and so for a moment there were geese all around me – calling out to one another and dotting the sky with dark and beautiful shapes. I felt empowered and trivial all at once.

Geese are interesting birds. I don't know a lot about them (or about any birds, really), but I remember once I read that they assign amongst them sentinels who stand guard whilst their flockmates sleep and eat. You can see them if you look at a grounded gathering of geese – they are the ones scattered throughout with their necks craned and their heads swiveling as they gaze the area around the group. I've never seen one call out a warning that I'm aware of, they just watch and wait, protecting the group, no matter how large or small the gathering. They will gather everywhere, too – the lake, the median that divides the drive-thru from the parking lot at Tim Horton's, the ragged cornfields still sporting the truncated spikes of last year's stalks. I'm always happy to see them return.

I'm also happy that the crows stay through the winter. Crows are a different sort of bird altogether. I've always thought that if we were to transform a crow into a human, we wouldn't get Brandon Lee, but rather James Dean. T-shirts with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeves and a swagger that would give all the T-Birds a run for their money, even Danny Zuko. They really don't care. They are jet black rebels, sauntering around as if they own the world. If you drive too close, they reluctantly get out of the way and often seem cranky while they do it. They will walk rather than fly, as if to drive home how nonchalant and unconcerned they are. Their call is raucous and edgy. They sit in the tops of trees and just send call after call into the sky, that throaty squawk that makes their whole bodies move. Sometimes they are alone, and sometimes they gather in clusters – exuding malicious or mischievous intent. A murder of crows. It is no wonder to me that one of the animal-spirited divine beings of some of the Native Americans is Crow, and for others, it is Raven. I can see it every time I catch the sight of black feathers, which always seem stark against whatever environment they've chosen – whether it is road-side buffet, the tops of barren trees, or just strutting around a random patch of grass.

On the exact opposite of the spectrum of birds are the little ones – the sparrows and the finches. The ones that are coming back to us now in full swing, moving in stuttered, hopping movement that makes 'flighty' an apt, if somewhat pun-ish, descriptor. Tiny beaks and tiny feet, they hop around looking for some great treasure in food or nest-supplies. I also like the bright ones – the elegant cardinals and the trouble-making blue jays. I love them all: the gangly grace of the heron and the ugly confidence of the buzzard, the stately royalty of the eagle and the menacing beauty of the hawk. I even love the goofy persistence of 'sea' gulls and the homebody waddle of the duck.

I do not know a lot about birds, but the few tidbits I've picked up are interesting and oddly amusing. For instance, it amuses me that they believe dinosaurs may have more in common with birds than with other beasts. It's entertaining also that pigeons and doves are more or less the same bird. I find it fascinating that flamingos are only pink because of the algae that they eat. And I will forever have the image of a chicken in a tree because I saw it once, somewhere. I also chuckle that every big, circling, faraway bird in the sky is a turkey vulture. Just ask my dad. In short, all birds are beautiful and funny and fascinating and with that first robin and that first morning filled with birdsong, I cease to love winter and I long for spring…

In that moment, I agree with e.e. cummings, who once said: "I would rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach 10,000 stars how not to dance."

Sing on, my feathered friends.