From The Ground Up

I would have loved to be a cemetery caretaker in the old days. Nowadays I think cemetery caretakers spend their time maneuvering ride around lawn mowers, and picking up beer cans and condoms.

I checked out job descriptions and they are pretty benign. "Inspect the cemetery on a predetermined schedule, mow and trim approximately once per month, repair vandalism as needed to fencing, benches and signs."  Skills and Experience Needed: "None required."

These guys are town workers who spend more time away from the cemetery than in it.

I want the job but I want it old school.

I need to be there full time. I need to dig graves by hand and wipe the sweat off my brow with a blood red bandanna. I need to stand in the shadows as people mourn, I need to throw dirt on the coffin as they drink and reminisce.

I would only shave once a week and I'd wear worn flannel shirts in the cold and torn white T-shirts in the heat.

I would use a push mower as I carefully maneuvered around the graves.

I would want to develop an intimate relationship with the grounds. I would want it to be my cemetery.

I think it is all about respect. Every fresh grave I dug would make me wonder; who was this person, what did they do, were they ever happy, how did they die, did they die too soon and unfulfilled.

What does dying mean?

I would get to know them after the burial. Carefully mowing their new lawn. Amazing how we humans are obsessed with lawns, even in death.

I don't give a damn about lawns.

But here it would be a source of pride to take good care. I would be on my knees clipping to perfection. And I would read the gravestone, learn what I could.

The rest I would learn through conversation. I would have a rusty lawn chair to sit on at the foot of the grave as I ate my lunch sandwich consisting of capicolla, provolone cheese and horse radish sauce on rye bread. I would enjoy a cold beer with the sandwich but the empty would be carefully packed away and properly disposed of.

I would write poetry in the ten minutes left to my lunch break after eating.

I would make my rounds specifically to visit with these people. Just to stop by and say hello whether any maintenance was needed or not.

I imagine I would have my favorites. I know I would have my favorites. Hopefully nobody to hate, but I could see hate blossoming at the foot of a huge gravestone at the top of a hill overlooking the stream that gurgles by below.

One ups-manship even in death.

What the hell is the point?

I would lay my mind open to the vibe and divine from it what I could.

Obviously the peace of the job appeals to me. Tremendously. Nobody else to deal with. Nobody gossiping or attempting to maneuver me, nobody lying to me and talking behind my back.

You know, the typical work environment.

But it is all about that vibe. Being around the dead and hoping to learn something about death.

And life.

All these people who have the answer that all of us covet.

My hope would be that through my respect, a communication could develop.

Once in a while I would lay down upon a grave, my head up against the gravestone, probably that of one of my favorites, and look up into the sun.

Or on my bolder days, up into the moon.

And meditate.

Cemetery caretaker is one more job that has been reduced by progress.

One more job where I missed the boat.