
Photographing in Wollongong cemetery looking for old angels and broken columns, I met a woman who used to be in the ‘industry’ and we start talking. As an ex-funeral director, she pointed to those she’d put in here — one over there, a couple further on. Even family members, a cousin, an uncle. Not her husband tho, he’s buried elsewhere.
Since he passed, she’d been touring the country with her friend looking at cemeteries. I asked her what she was looking for. ‘I just like them, they’re peaceful,’ she replied. They’ve even visited western australian cemeteries, driving across the nullabor in their white diahatsu with purple wire wheels.
in the cemetery some graves ostentatious in black — lawns and marble squares and then the little grass patch for the stillborn babies
Originally established on the outskirts, over the last hundred years the city has grown to surround the cemetery. Light industry on one side, new housing and a school on the other. It takes effort to block out the road noise and the clanking of equipment being unloaded.
in the cemetery tidy plots with fresh flowers then Ryan’s pine cross 10 years and still no headstone — which will be my grave?
Before we part, the woman points to the old part of the cemetery and we discuss masonic styles, urns and torches and what these symbols mean. Aside from the trees, we’re the only ones breathing in all this crowd. We agree people should be encouraged to visit cemeteries more often.
in the cemetery thinking I’ve no grave to visit — gave dad’s ashes to the ocean off Perth I remember beach walking
Image: Bronte Cemetery, 2016. Today, tanka prose or tanka tale (a bit like a haibun) for you. There’ll be no tanka for the next couple of days as I’m off travelling, so I thought this installment might tide us over.
And for music, something beautiful but appropriate to the theme of this post, American composer Gregory Hutter with Tears (Youtube) from a poem by Walt Whitman. This from a 2019 album of Secular Choral Music (Youtube). You are going to want to listen to this album several times, then go and buy a copy, it’s that good.