I wandered into the cemetery by chance, while waiting for a photocopying job to be finished, and felt I had crossed into a foreign country.
Unlike the rule-bound Mount Auburn Cemetery, where artificial flowers and ornaments are forbidden, anything goes here. My favorite is the grave with the yellow and gold plastic telephone and the glass blue bird.
Peter, who lived to one hundred, is remembered for his barbering. Without the dates bracketing the span of his life, the design of the gravestone would be appropriate for Peter's barbershop sign.
John Hogan must have loved Coke Classic. To the right of the bottle are three quarters.
Memorial knick-knacks.
The perspective of the heavenly staircase is dizzying to me.
Images of the Virgin prevailed, many gravestones carved with the Hail Mary.
Here, with a mossy roof, is a tiny icon of the Virgin.
Every once in a while, the wind would lift the bright balloons tethered to a gravestone. Startled, I would catch the motion out of the corner of my eye, mistaking the balloons for a person leaning over the grave, but I was the only one walking among the gravestones, which bore the signs of fresh tributes. The smell of lilies rose from a heap of flowers over a fresh grave. I took my last picture: a flamboyant cross.
These tokens are very touching. They are the mysterious epitaphs omitted by those who placed the stones.
ReplyDeleteBluedog, I could have taken dozens and dozens of pictures. There were Boston Red Sox caps, baseball bats, angels, a miniature lighthouse, a huge ceramic frog, pictures of the dead embedded in the gravestone or displayed in a frame, a mobile attached to the gravestone, plaques with all sorts of sayings, flags, etc.
ReplyDeletei tend to be drawn to small, rural cemeteries, with worn markers and overgrown paths, where the dead have a quiet anonymity. your cemetery is so lively, full of rich memories and personality.
ReplyDeletei think these memorials are wonderful!