Spring Sprouts in Coffin Towns
Finding life in the cemetery
Even life fosters itself in cemeteries.
While social distancing recently, I took myself to the largest of three cemeteries in our rural Oklahoma town.
Armed with a camera, bottled water, and my own two legs, I sought out something to photograph — while getting a little exercise too.
When we think of cemeteries, some imagine horror. They think of rot. Dancing skeletons and cold, unforgiving stone markers etched in death dates and mournful quotes.
We imagine dark cinematic scenes of black umbrellas and sobbing widows. Don’t forget the rain.
But cemeteries sprout more than tears.
It’s a fostering of life. Look at the blooms of rain-fed flowers. Mindless fluttering butterflies and bees and nameless baby bugs cloud the air.
I find a bee mingling in a party of orange flowers. A caterpillar takes its afternoon commute home through a parade of plush purple petals.
Birds dance in the grass. They make thrones out of headstones. I find that birds are kings of individual worlds.
