KOTW – Graveyards

Sanctuary

A garden of graves, of bones, of places where we’ve planted our beloved dead. I love graveyards. They’re peaceful. The old stone angels stand between ancient yews, heavy with berries and death, give it a holy air. The song of the toxic trees is like a choir, music of eternal renewal and endless sleep.

Graveyards are places of sanctuary to me. I grew up near one which had high fences, locked at night. It was large and sprawling, a place to disappear into and share poetry with the fair folk. To escape from the crowds and catch my breath.

A lover and I snuck in one night, finding a place between the graves to lay our blanket and watch the stars knowing we’d be undisturbed.

These are liminal spaces, where we return to the earth from which we were born. Sinking deep into the moist, dark, soil and forgetting everything that doesn’t matter.

We made love under the stars that night, the sanctuary of death becoming a guardian of pleasure. There was nothing taboo about it to me, just something as natural as breathing. Finding fleeting gifts of the flesh in a space where our cultural avoidance of facing death meant that we could safely contrast the inevitable ending with defiant bliss. Resting on the dirt in the cool autumn air, dead leaves crunching underneath, I touched the stars…

… I am told I am an earthy thing, but I hope to stay out of it for a good while yet.