Cemetery in Snow: An Overview - Place Prompt #1

**Author's Note: I realize this post is extremely lengthy for a blog, but it recounts my first visit to a new place, and there is so much to say about it! Thanks in advance to those of you who *actually* make it through to the end. Way to stick to it! :-P **


12:38 PM on Friday, January 13th, 2012, and my poor South Carolina body (as I describe it in this northern winterscape) laments the fact that I'm dragging it into 29 degrees of pouring snow. Screw the fact that it's a homework assignment. Who cares that the weather creates a perfect aura for a perfect day (Friday the 13th, after all) in a cemetery? It would much rather hunker down and hibernate with my kitten...


I brush snow from my car using the heavy duty snow brush/ice scraper combo that was given to me by a woman who used it in Japan. My fingers feel cold then go numb because I don't have any gloves that fit. I am still not used to this, having only experienced snow very rarely back home in South Carolina. It was a pleasure then. Now, it's a way of life for months at a time, and it's annoying.


I drive slowly on the unscraped roads, still not used to how my tires interact with the slush after only one previous winter in Pittsburgh. Trucks and SUVs fly past me, and I ignore their pushiness. I see the black iron fence surrounding my destination, Homewood Cemetery, but miss the turn into it. I continue straight, turn right at the next light, and congratulate myself with a silent "Yes!" when I catch sight of another driveway to my left. I enter a small lane dusted with enough snow to cover the concrete, lined on the left with the iron fence and a major roadway, on the right with a metal railing and scrubby flora cascading down a steep incline.

I make a mental note to walk back here, to take a picture of the overview of rolling hills jutted with rows of grave markers that look as if hey are bodies themselves emerging from under the layer of white topsoil the precipitation has strewn on them. This is a fine introduction to my new place, what will become a sort of retreat, a safe space, for me this semester.

There is a pond! And trees! These are familiar to me-- they remind me of the stables at which I used to work, a small pond in the center of our horse pasture for them to drink, play, and cool off. And I can pretend, with the soft snow blanket, that I'm not in a city anymore. I continue my drive towards the office, where I see other vehicles parked in a haphazard line on the edge of the drive. I get out and am immediately entranced by the quietude of the scene: There's not a soul to be seen or heard, despite the evidence that they're near. Yes, I hear cars as they speed past, but I can ignore them and pretend I'm far away. I smile, turn towards the office to get my bearings, and fall in love with the skeletal tree I see. It's the kind of tree that impresses with its stature, the rough curves of its limbs, empty as they are of leaves, but not of life. This tree is dormant, and it fills me with excitement because it stimulates my aesthetic-- I love curves, not angles, the semblance of decay, knotholes and imperfections. It's the kind of tree that reminds me I want to do a photographic and poetic exploration of just such winter trees.

I press on and let my senses take over. This is a new place, a place of nature, and this is my first impression. I need to glean as much sensual knowledge as possible. I am cold-- I still need a winter coat. My hair and skin are damp where the snow melts into the strands around the heat of my face and neck. Snow looms over the landscape where it alights on my eyelashes and I can see it around the edges of my vision. My eyes are overwhelmed. This place is certainly different from South Carolina, my home, and there is a lot to take in at first glance. I cannot discern any specific scents, at least not ones to which I can put a name. I hear wind but calm, quiet, save for the cars I've already chosen to ignore. There is only one thing to taste, and the snow is refreshing and crisp as it turns to water on my tongue. Taking in these sensual elements one at a time makes it easier for me to focus, and it brings back memories of the few snows I can remember in South Carolina (and the excitement that came with them). I decide to focus on one area of the cemetery today-- the area which I oversee from this vantage point. I'll leave the rest for other visits.

I start my trek towards what has captured my attention most so far: the pond. As I approach, I hear the wind in the reeds (no pun intended). They sound dry and hollow, and their song is a whisper underlaid with chitterings as they dance together, bounce into one another. They are at the far end of the pond, where the dark water gives way to the tall, brown grasses so thick it's almost impossible to see the liquid from which they emerge.

There is a place among them where they tangle and smush almost into the water. The snow is heavy on them; it seems to push them down. I imagine they are weighted with the cold as I am, but I know they do not feel as I do. Still, I project my humanity onto them in an effort to better understand and relate to them.

I look across the pond, out to the graveyard proper. I like the idea of human remains nurturing the grounds under which they lie. Some might think I have no respect for the dead. I am not here to honor them, nor does it stir something within me to know I am among them. I have seen more death, up close and personal, in the past eight years than most people witness in a lifetime (save for what they see in the media). But I always grin when I see death feed back into life, and Homewood Cemetery certainly abounds with both.

There is another tree to the side of the pond which I admire. It seems to be some sort of weeping willow. It must have been planted here deliberately because I cannot find it on Western Pennsylvania Conservancy's Trees of Pittsburgh web-guide. Its long, brown strands cascade from curved branches and sound similar to the reeds when the wind mingles them together. They are dry, papery, and I admire how the short, dark trunk gives way to multiple branches in all directions. In spring, this will be the tree I most want to sit under.

For now, I stand underneath and feel the strands caress my shoulders as I look to see how they enhance the landscape around us, the tree and me. I like to peer through and between things, and this is a perfect opportunity.

I trek on. To my right, the sun is coming down from its peak in the noon sky. I try to not stare at it, as I've been told since elementery school, but I like how it is a bright circle that beams through the misty gray cloud-cover that seems to loom right above my height. The sun is a glowing hole in this sky. There is a steep hill, one I wish to climb, but I'm not sure if I will make it up considering how I manage to slip on snow on flat surfaces. Grass tips peek through the snow, and where they are covered, they make the ground a lumpy blanket. I am intrigued by yet another tree on the hill, and my photographer's mind forces the rest of me to stop to get the shot.

I climb the hill, leaning forward in an attempt not to slide right back down. I reach another tree (I must be single-minded or obsessed) with smooth, grey bark and moss around its roots that has captured the snow in a speckled pattern. Someone has carved into this tree, and the tattoo of it cannot be placed in time, though I want to think it is old and has withstood the weathering this landscape endures.

I have reached a road which circles around the valley-home of the pond. I follow it, taking in the scene, enjoying my brisk walk, glad I'm not as cold now that my body is used to it. The nature seems evident in all that I've seen, but I know there is more if I look harder and uncover it.

In front of me, I see several examples. There is a bush, two-tiered, which has grown protectively around a couple of gravestones. It's as if the graves were accidentally put into the bush, but I know that they are old enough such that the bush has begun to envelop them. I see several trunks, so they might be trees, but I'm mostly intrigued by the layers of long, slim, slick, dark green leaves: one at ground-level, the other above an empty layer between the two. I've never seen any plant like it before.

This conversion of nature with the human footprint always leaves me fascinated. Nature, it seems, will prevail. I find this to be true in two other areas very near to this one--grass growing between the minute cracks in the concrete, and clover growing at the edge of a grate which covers a drain.

There is a dead stump across the small roadway from these sights. This death propels more life from it-- weeds grow in its gaping mouth and mushrooms staircase up its side. This is the decay I'm sure Bhairavi would celebrate. This is how destruction can be good, how it can lead to yet more life. These mushrooms recycle the decay of the stump. I find both exquisite.

Further down the road I find bedframe-like grave which have sunken into the ground. Within them, fallen leaves and grass I can barely see through the snow blanket create the mattress.

There is a horse chestnut tree around the next bend. I can tell by looking at the seed pods which are scattered below it, though I have to scoop them out of the snow with the toe of my sneakers. I am familiar with them because they are poisonous to horses (despite their horse-friendly common name), which I learned during my time working at the stables in South Carolina. While searching for one to photograph, I hear a strange sound each time the wind picks up. It's a familiar wooden creak, like floorboards or heavy doors in old plantation homes in South Carolina. I realize the tree above me is moaning, and the cemetery ambiance is at its finest.

(Please forgive the white noise and wind in the video. You can hear the tree sort of popping and then groaning towards the end of the clip, though.)

I have made it around the loop back to my car. In front of it is the scene depicted in the background of this blog-- a large tree with a concrete bench in front of it. I feel it embodies the essence of Homewood Cemetery, or at least the essence I get from it. There is a knot in the tree, beneath which is a frozen icicle made of sap. Up close, it is the hue of amber, with smooth ridges. I notice the knot, which I refer to as a nook, has greenery growing out of it, very much like the stump I discovered earlier.

I look out over the graves, and cannot wait until my next visit when I can explore a new section and its nature offerings. I love my cemetery in the snow.