The Cemetery

When I look out my utility room window the view includes the hillside on the neighboring farm.  When the sun is just setting the rays will often highlight the tall obelisk in the tiny family cemetery on that hill.  There it stands, overlooking the farm, with the other smaller stones clumped around it, surrounded by a black wrought iron fence.  It is a quiet tribute to the family that lived on the land and loved it enough to want to be buried there.

The farms in our area were once part of a land grant given to returning soldiers after the Revolutionary War.  These land grants were huge, sometimes as much as 15,000 acres.  I don't know how big the one was that included our area, or even who it was granted to (although I have been told, just can't remember).  What I do know is that over the years farmers have worked continuously to preserve and improve the land.  The original farmers were faced with a land covered in forests.  Inch by inch they laborously cut the trees and removed the stumps to create small clearings for their crops.  The next generation enlarged the clearings and created fields for their cattle and crops.  The orginal land grants were sold and cut up into smaller farms.  The one thing that remained constant is the love and care each generation bestowed on the land.

I look at that small cemetery glowing in the setting sun and I wonder about man whose stone is there.  I imagine that as a young man he looked with pride at his land and dreamed dreams for his children.  I can see him doing his evening chores by the soft light of lanterns.  Maybe he's throwing hay to the horses,or sitting on a three legged stool to milk the family milk cow, with a row of patient barn cats waiting for their share.  Maybe there is a tow headed little boy and a brown-eyed little girl waiting for daddy to come through the gate for supper.  Did he plant the big tree by the barn for shade when they were working cattle?  Was it his idea to clear the bottom for corn? Was it his labor that built the pond in the dry field? Did he plant winter wheat to feed his fields and cut hay to feed his cattle?  Did he dream of passing this all on to his children and their children? 

I imagine that when his time came to an end he cherished the idea that buried on the hill he could overlook the land that he had loved and nurtured.  Rest well gentle farmer.  Your land is still loved and cared for.