The Maverick

It's early morning, the time of day where dew still cleans to the grass, barely visible in the pale sunlight. My shoes squeak as I walk quietly through the graveyard, trying not to disturb the utter silence that envelopes me. The earth is still sleepy and moon has not yet relinquished its place in the sky, but the grave markers are clearly visible. They solid rock and stone shines with a light all its own, strong and timeless.

I come here to look at the names. I let my hands brush ever so slightly on the tops of the headstones as I walk past them, one by one. They are old, so very old, yet untainted by the ravages of time. Sure they're a little worn down by ages of rain and endless winds, but nothing could damper their splendor. They serve as reminders of what was, what is and what will yet become.

Some are big, carved into intricate shapes. On them are names written in bold script, sunken deep into the stone. Names of people I never knew. Dates that are vivid to someone, somewhere, but that mean little to me.

I am just an observer.

I like to imagine the people whose names I read. I imagine what they would have looked like, what kind of life they might have lived. The Martha's and Arleen's live quiet lives in my mind, peaceful. The James' and Violets live grand lives as secret kings and lost adventures. They have people who love them, they have families. Other times they are solitary. Each name brings about a new scenario to mind.

One name inspires a tragic tale of love. I can picture the grieving woman leaning her hands against the cold, wet stone in front of me. Tears fall from her face, and fresh flowers hang limply in her hand. She falls to her knees, and gently places the flowers at the base of the rounded marker. She brushes her fingers against the name, the date, the one line of explanation. She stands, and looks behind at me, then vanishes. Sometimes I wonder if what I'm seeing is entirely fictional.

Some graves have flowers, or flags. Others are covered with moss and look as though they have not been touched in far too long. Forgotten, perhaps like the decaying bodies they house. Time carries on, claiming one life after another, filling its soil with their spent shells.

But even as decades come and go, cemeteries endure. People constantly feel the need to mark the losses of each other. A reminder left for anyone, really. One page, cement diaries. Sure family and friend visit, but the headstones seem to me like a testament to lives when those who remember them are gone. They stand, crooked and immovable, telling whoever wanders in here that this name is worth something, it's worth remembering.

It makes me wonder why people come to these places. A poem springs to mind; "Do not stand at my grave and weep/I am not there/I do not sleep". There is nothing here of the person known in life, yet we come here and talk to them, cry to them.

There is nothing here but bones and bits of flesh in decorated boxes covered by the dirt.

Yet here I stand. Alone in a cemetery, imagining the lives of those who live no more. Perhaps that's what cemeteries are for. To allow you to live on the minds of the fanciful wandering. Maybe their a chance to escape the bonds of monotony that enslaved you in life.