Jan 11, 2013

Living Off Dead

"Of all the meditations,
meditation on death is supreme."
---Clavo Clavito

We drive into the Conrad Memorial Cemetery
(“The Best Last Place”)
and park in front of Mr. Conrad’s Mausoleum—
a stone building with pillars
the same size as the boarding house I currently rent a room in,
all for one guy’s rotting corpse.

Banjo on my back, we head
down the narrow, uneven
rock steps covered in ice
that lead to the Stillwater.

A gunshot
rings out below us.

We freeze.
Another shot.

Still, we ignore
the NO TRESPASSING sign
and hop over the barbed wire.
On the other bank of the river,
a man and his wife sit
above some geese.
The man waves.
I wave.

We walk down the river a ways
and sit on a log.

Just as I pull out my axe,
the man appears
holding a rifle.
“We’re hunting here.
Anything flies up this way,
you’re gonna make it turn around.”

I tell him sorry and put the banjo
back in its case.

A pause. “And, y’know,
technically
you’re on our property.”

Before we hop back over the fence,
you say you’d like to pee,
so I walk away and see the house—
a small place,
with a few dozen acres of woods and river
all to themselves.

I hear you singing,
“This land is your land
this land is my land.”

Driving out, we see
people walking around the cemetery,
holding hands,
walking their dogs.
They all smile and wave as we pass.

Surrounded by mountains
on a sunny January day
as you walk amongst the dead.
How nice, I think.

Before the exit gate,
a sign:

DULL AND STAINED
MONUMENTS
AND MARKERS?
WE CLEAN AND POLISH
ASK FOR A QUOTE

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