DSC_0790-wm, a photo by Ali Crehan on Flickr.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.


– Theodore Roethke 




The Men of Kent Cemetery is a small one and an old one, with many headstones splitting, falling, fallen, covered with lichen and worn soft with the passing of time. They were once flinty sharp-edged witnesses, but there have been so many seasons to yield to, so much New England weather to blunt the details, and it was all so very long ago.

The names in this cemetery are scattered all over the town – Turner, Jenkins, Merritt, Cudworth, Tilden, Hatherly, Gannett. It’s easy to take the names for granted – just another street, just another school, just another word that’s commonplace to this place. But here lie the bodies of…