Peace and Sleep

On Tuesday  we hosted a party for our great State Rep Jason Lewis. Then  on Wednesday David  packed to go to Germany, stopping en route to the airport for a wake. It was a big week for wakes:  Two people in our circle died and though I could not got to the interment of one I did  get to the interment of the other; in fact I was still at the graveside at 5.I say "still" but really I went back, in that last glorious hour of light, with the air as warm as summer and a wind like a matron of honor fluffing out the skirts of trees and the bushes. I was alone but for a woman around 40 who had been sitting by a grave that morning too, her sorrow her secret; she simply sat on the grass and looked at her headstone.Me, I wandered, for more than an hour. looking for shots that might comfort the family and found a few I think, though this one may sear more than it comforts. What does comfort I found is not so much to sit by a grave as to lie by one. I took these shots crouched down behind the headstone of Gene and his Betty, who waited seven years for Gene to join her.Anyway they are together now in the Great Mystery, watching the high tall sky, the bloom of light by day, and the night coming on, bringing peace and sleep to their children and to all of us the living, who yearn so much and understand so little.