Simplicity

         The sky had opened up to a beautiful azure blue, with few cirrus clouds lining the vast expanse. It was early in autumn, and its evidence could be felt on the breeze. Slightly more biting than the summer currents, the chilliness in the air required a second layer, of which I wore a long sleeve shirt of poly-cotton fibers. I breathed in the freshness of the air, cooling my nasal passages and sighing out in relief that another day was approaching dusk, and I was here to enjoy it.

         I went to a small, private high school, which took place mostly in the basement of a small church that had a couple hundred years of history behind it. The school day itself had ended, but my fellow “car pooler” had a project to work on that would keep him there for a couple more hours. I decided I needed something to occupy my time, so I thought I would venture out to the cemetery that rested behind the church. There I could sit, walk, or stand in the quiet where I could sort out my mind from the various chaotic patterns that enveloped the fragility of my teenage years.

         I glided gently on the homemade parking area, which was more dirt than anything else. It would not be for three years that the parking lot would be fully paved. I kicked sand up as I walked, but the wind quickly and easily took the now airborne particles and moved them further away from their place. Other sand moved beneath my shoes, the tread marks leaving behind the aftertaste of my presence.

         I continued around the back of the building, stepping onto the recently thrown together basketball area. I could not respectably refer to it as a basketball court, as it was no such thing. Much like the driveway, this area was put together with a reckless abandon for the sanctity of the septic tank below. The grass was unevenly grown, sparsely populated, and generally unfriendly to most bugs. It would offer them little protection from sunlight, predators, or people as they trundled along. For those who observed or collected such creatures, however, it was the best place in that area to find some hapless beetle or ant or spider that managed to end up in this anti-oasis.

         Beyond the yard was a rock wall that seemed to be seventy-five to one hundred feet in length, and about 3 feet in actual height. The stones were a part of the raised earth it protected, where grass, weeds, moss, and other assorted types of non-edible vegetation permeated its surface. There was a definite pocket of insect life that existed in all the openings afforded them. Many of the creatures made the holes themselves, others found recently vacated cavities to place their nests or their young or just to avoid contact with others.

         I found the stones that had fallen from the rock wall near a hidden corner behind the church. They allowed me to walk up the wall, rather than scale it, as I would normally have to do. It was not as if the scaling of the wall was all that difficult; it was only three feet tall, and I towered over it at my domineering-to-rock-walls five foot height. I just thought that I would take it leisurely today, and not try to impress my insectoid audience.

         The stones did afford them a bit of a show, as one of them wasn’t quite level. You learned very quickly how it would move at the slightest shifting. There was no real danger of falling off of it, however, unless you allowed your own fears to knock you down. The stone was sturdy enough, but there was a piece on the underside that, when you stood on the precipice appropriately, would cause the unevenness. It moved slightly under my weight, but I was able to quickly move off of it, almost as if I was an acrobat on the tightrope, or a slightly overweight teenager on an unevenly “grown” rock.

         I stepped through the underbrush and weeds that managed to gather up on the rock wall. Those who cared for both the yard in the church and the grounds of the cemetery were unable, and mostly unwilling, to properly cultivate this mess of overgrowth. Many of it was thorn bushes, and I found myself grateful for the denim I had protecting my legs, and the boots that weighed my feet down even more so than my body did. As I did so often before, and so many times since, I jumped about two and a half feet in front of me to get over some of the trampled and thorny shrubs. Here I was, officially in the cemetery.

         There were several small gravestones that were set in the path before me. They were the oldest members of the cemetery, and by far the least ornate. They had no style, no fanciful etchings, barely a presence. Although there for at least 200 years, the grass and weeds and sundry roots in the area hadn’t made any effort to displace or alter the markers in any way. They had the general color of seaweed and mud, the shape of an overweight brick, and appeared as if a lathe beveled the corners. The face of each stone merely stated the person it was meant for, along with the dates of their humble physical existence. The method used to stamp the letters and numbers onto the discount bricks drew me to believe the dead themselves were forced to make these markers as a final reminder of their life ever ending.

         The cemetery was close to the main road, but another rock wall protected it. There was some grass between the road and the homemade structure, about seven feet from asphalt to stone. There was also a large iron gate that kept the dead in and the living out. The lock had rusted permanently over the course of the many years it sat there amidst the elements, keeping it shut from all who would attempt to move it. The wall on either side of it stood a staggering 4 feet tall, making it almost impossible for a kitten to jump onto, and definitely impossible for a puppy to do anything but relieve itself against.

         At the furthest end of this rock wall, however, was a second gate. It was smaller in its width compared to the previous opening, being only six feet wide, while the rusted gate was at least ten or twelve feet. This gate was also showing signs of age and wear, but it had been left open one night long ago, allowing people to pass easily in and out. You could see the markings of vehicles that would make the journey to the cemetery through that gate, visiting a former owner no doubt.

         The section nearest the road seemed to have the newer sorts of stones, of columns and ornate slabs of worked earth, polished to an unnatural gleam. The columns seemed out of place for this particular arena of age and history, but they still found their way to be accepted with the other, simpler monuments. I could see these manifestations of what I considered to be gaudy epitaph emplacements, but I did not venture any closer to them. In fact, I would never venture to the section nearest the road, for it was too close to the civilization I was seeking to avoid; the markers themselves a reminder of modern times.

         I made my way through to the gap of ground that separated the “modern” section with the more homely stones of old. An expanse of ten feet from grave to grave, it could be seen that some vehicles dared climb the uneven, and in places steep, incline from the open gate to the large tree that sat at the apex of the landscape. I was, of course, on the opposite side of the tree, but I could plainly see the trails that made their way towards its massive girth.

         The tree must have been at least as old as the cemetery, and perhaps even older. The cemetery itself seemed to grow out of the ground surrounding this massive life. The branches were too high to reach for any good climbing to occur, and it stood tall and proud, as if it were the real caretaker of the fallen souls who placed their carapaces here before their journey to the afterlife had begun.

         Other gravestones jutted from the earth with the look of many years, of many seasons. They were grayer than any storm I had ever seen; the cumulous clouds of the thunderstorms that kept you awake at night as a small child were nothing compared to these markers of lives long since passed. The wear on them was so prevalent, and the various repairs to them so obvious, that the names of those they were supposed to display were no longer readable. The softer stone they must have been made from, and their two and a half foot height, allowed the winds and the sands of time to scratch away much of their surface.

         I noticed that some of these stones had been irreparably damaged, but their remains were set gently against the base of what had first existed. I later learned that former students had damaged some of these stones, but no one was able or willing to fix them, or pay to have them repaired as other stones had been. It seemed a shame to disgrace those who were there; a people who have come before them were now nothing more than a cheap piece of rock to them.

         I walked calmly through the stones, weaving a path not intended by the founders of this cemetery; it was little matter, as neither the living nor the dead would notice my presence. I would be a passing memory to the tides of time that would wash over this place. I smiled at my eternal insignificance and trundled along.

         The farthest gate, which laid bare to all, had a path cut into the earth by various sorts of wheeled traffic. It straightway marked the end of the cemetery on one side, but it came to a circular path on the rear of the cemetery, rounding back upon itself. This rear section was also lower; a small hill separated the upper and lower sections by five feet of elevation, and twenty feet of earthen expanse.

         On the path that extended from the open gate to the far end was a small wall of stones, maybe a foot in height. I found myself heading towards the wall; I knew I would sit quietly for a time at that place; the furthest from the school proper. As I got closer, something was stuck in the ground that struck me as peculiar for its placement and its shape. It was a rock, a stone; a piece of large earth that was sitting seemingly juxtaposed with the gravestones. I thought this might have been a mistake made by the crafters and planners of this cemetery. My curiosity was drawn to this rock, so completely different from everything else there. It was too large to be part of a rock wall that may have existed there, and it was too simplistic to be a marker.

         I moved unexpectedly towards the rock, and as I rounded its rough edge to face what I then realized to be the front, I was amazed. There was an inset section, with a name etched into it. In fact, not only was a name present, but the dates whereby he lived and died, and the name and date of his wife. Franklin J. Hall was his name, though I was not able to make out the dates. There was a greater sign of wear on this rock, and some moss had eaten away some of the inset and the etchings. His wife, Edith Hall, was also buried here. There was no indication of a family plot; no other Halls were buried here.

         I marveled at the humbleness and the workmanship in this gravestone. There was no epitaph, as was present on other markers, no indicators on what he did, or who he even was. It was merely Franklin J. Hall, and Edith Hall, his wife. I pressed my hand against the rock, and could feel the coolness of it. The moss almost rose to meet my hand as I moved to different sections of the stone, but I was careful not to disturb the lichen. It, too, had a place in this cemetery, on this stone, keeping Franklin and Edith in constant reminder that life is all around them.

         I wondered about this man, this Franklin J. Hall. Was he a farmer? Was he a merchant? What was it that made Franklin J. Hall live his life in Candia, NH? Who was Edith? Where did she come from? These were tales that, for some reason, interested me. These two people, whom I never met, had passed long before my great-grandparents were considered for conception. What were the issues that they faced? What social ills did they feel need correcting? Did such things even enter their minds, or were their lives already so full that they hadn’t the time or inclination to think of things beyond caring for their home and their family?

         I sat on the wall facing Franklin J. Hall, and his wife Edith, and I began to get inspired to write a poem. Not in any morbid sense, mind you. I have learned through modern culture that the dead are something you fear; it may crawl out of its grave and attempt to eat my brain. Yet… even in the dark, I knew this cemetery would bring me only serenity, of which I felt very little in the hustle and bustle of my life. This stone reminded me that there were a people that came before me, and they passed with little remembrance. They would not be recalled in anyone’s memory, and none would write about them. Franklin J. Hall, and his wife Edith, deserved more than that, in my mind. I wasn’t out to correct any misconceptions about their lives, but I had something that begun in me praising the simplicity of this stone, of this moment. I thanked God for this visit of inspiration upon me.

         The cemetery seemed higher to me in many ways than our humble beginnings of an educational institution. Those within this place would see the passage of time in ways none of us could conceive, and they would watch the school and the children within grow and move on. They would wonder of our future as we wondered of their past.