On visiting a cemetery with young people

Four stones say:
Kinder von JB & Lizzie Falk
Lena Falk - Aug 4, 1916 to Apr 16, 1918
David Falk - Geb. (born) & Gest. (died) Aug 28, 1924


Corny Frederick Falk - Oct 19, 1936 to Aug 12, 1943 "Safe in the arms of Jesus"


Vater - John B Falk - 1888 to 1974 "Selig in Jesu Armen" 


Mutter - Elizabeth Falk (Geb (born) Sawatzky) - 1894 to 1948 "Selig in Jesu Armen"


There's laughter and pokes and jabs and shrieks in the SouthEast wind on the second really warm day in May this year. Have they just lost context, or is it Spring and really what else could one do but be young and silly? Is it perhaps too much to ask to settle down into the weight of the stones. The stories. It's a small sunlit place during the day - grass long with dandelions making appearances.

We who live so well don't really want the news of death. Why pay attention to it when there's living and breathing to do? When we've put all our stock in this one fact: that we will wake up in the morning and be well. We count on the rather ridiculous notion that breathing in and out will just always work. That your body will always remember, even when you're not paying attention. If our bodies were as carefree as our brains, we'd be dead. The heart, off on a daydream, takes a minute or two to wander, and what do you get? Death. We count on those biological elements that we cannot consciously propel in one way or another. Can I? Can I will my heart to stop? Can I hurry it up without running hard? Worry it without being anxious? My heart is me - my body - and so I am, so will it be. Lungs and liver too.

So here I sit writing, not thinking about breathing or bloodflow or bloodcleansing. I do not know what I've got left. Or how long what I do will work.

Maybe it's best to forget and live blithe. Live in oblivion. Why bother with all this angsty examination? Is that what Lena, or David, or Corny would say? If they could? It's not what Dylan Thomas would say: "Do not go gentle ... " What does that mean? How do you rage against the dying of the light? Ignore it? Live despite it? Let it surprise you? Get angry? Get drunk? What?

I imagine I hear John and Elizabeth. The dead love to hear us talk and laugh. Don't you think? They want the company. The reminders. This was once me. This voice-making body one-ness of love and breath. Wind and laughter. Discomfort and ecstacy.

Can I know the two - death and life - without knowing both at once? What does the dead man know? I imagine David Falk, who was born and who died on the same day, speak: "I couldn't have had one without the other."


Ride report
in:          12'C wind 10 ks SE
out:       22'C wind 30 ks SE