On a warm Sunday morning I drive towards Willsons Downfall (a name commemorating a broken axle), and turn off to the old settlers cemetery. It’s unlike any other I’ve visited. It’s quite unkempt: the graves are scattered, and often hidden by tall grass. My only guide are slightly trodden paths through the grass: I keep a close watch, fearing snakes and the odd lurking tree root out to trip the unwary. On the Australian Cemeteries Index it’s listed in the category “Lonely graves”: it also fits into another class of cemeteries: the abandoned ones. I had to hunt for gravestones, as I hunt for native orchids, seeing more as my eye became attuned. Some of the gravestones are covered in lichen: the inscriptions and images on some are worn away; some lean.
As always in a graveyard one is left wondering. Why did Charlie die when he was only 19? Why couldn’t the family say goodbye to Patrick? What ended baby Troy’s short life? Did his grandmother really see the grave’s embrace of her husband William as tender? After all he was only 43: he should still have been in her tender embrace.
I’ve visited before, a long time ago. From that visit I remember an echidna burrowing down amongst the concrete surrounds of one grave; and a cluster of creamy white orchids curling round a tree bole. Today, only the bright unseasonal purple of hardenbergia.
I feel torn, part of me likes the way it’s returning to nature taking its inhabitants with it. but the other part finds it very sad to see it abandoned and neglected.
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A manicured pioneer cemetery I saw yesterday by the highway certainly didn’t look abandoned: it looked ridiculous!
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I was thinking unloved and forgotten too, but then… who’s left to mourn us as the years go by? We’re just names on a headstone. My favourite shot is the rusted fence. 🙂 🙂 And just below that, to the right, I thought I’d spotted a face with a stone cap on, but when I looked more closely it was a different fence. 🙂 Safe travels, lovely lady!
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I saw a pioneer cemetery today, all beautifully manicured, tombstones spaced out, and absolutely non-atmospheric. Should,Ve stopped for a photo, but if I stopped every time something caught my eye I’d never get home. Hole up in a hotel with a major trek to the loo but a great sunset.
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What a totally glorious setting!
Peta
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Gosh what an extra-ordinary place. I sense of haiku or three lurking there in your experiences. The photos are so evocative.
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My haiku-energy has been used up on the road: a plethora of half-written ones and a few escapees that didn’t get onto paper in time. You on the other hand never lack that energy. I gift you the cemetery!
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Funny you gifted me that cemetery. I had an odd dream about death last night which led to my haiku for my prompt this week. I hope you do some more haiku writing. I did enjoy the ones you posted for a previous prompt. I’m thinking I might start a section of ‘On the Road’ about writing haiku and haibun. This is the second comment I’ve got this morning which suggests there is room for it. I’ll see what evolves.
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My sort of place. Peaceful and undisturbed. I recollect a similar place somewhere on the Snowy Mountains, seemingly miles from anywhere.
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Oh my goodness, it’s heart-wrenching, Meg….. It seems to be abandoned and forgotten in the middle of nowhere… I would imagine feeling a tangible sorrow if I were to walk there…
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Oddly, I felt peace rather than heart-wrench. I wouldn’t mind such a resting place. I suspect there are a lot of such graveyards in the bush: I must have another look at the register of cemeteries.
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Oh, OK…I’ll believe you…it just seemed desperate from where I was sitting, well remote from the place
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