Words Fail Me

Cemeteries around Colorado

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“Death”

If death is seen as an ending of life, than death does not exist for life is eternal.

It dose not end, it simply changes form.

The spirit expands beyond the body’s ability to contain it. 

In this instant, the body is left behind.

It is the soul’s most difficult task to conform itself to the limitations of the human body.

It chooses to do so for it is an opportunity to create life anew.

It is the soul’s greatest challenge.

Death is not ending to life it is a transition from a limited existence to a limitless existence.

When the soul accomplishes all that it intends it simply continues the cycle experiencing the freedom of limitless expansion, The re-membering of the soul group.

Then the excitement of creation once again.

The challenge of new beginnings, What is called death, is actually the most joyous experience of Life.

“My Naked Self, My poetry: My Heart & Soul” By Brigitte Cinq-Mars

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The Epitaph

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth.

A youth of fortune and to fame unknown:

Fair Science frowned not on  his humble birth,

And Melancholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere:

Heaven did a recompense as largely send:

He gave lo misery (all he had,) a tear:

He Gained from Heaven  (’twas all he wished,) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode.

(There they alike in trembling hope repose)

The bosom of his Father and his God.

Fairmount Cemetery, Denver,Colorado

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When the Grass Shall Cover Me

When the grass shall cover me, Head to foot where I am lying,-- When not any wind that blows, Summer-blooms nor winter-snows, Shall awake me to your sighing: Close above me as you pass, You will say, "How kind she was," You will say, "How true she was," When the grass grows over me.

When the grass shall cover me, Holden close to earth's warm bosom,-- While I laugh, or weep, or sing, Nevermore, for anything, You will find in blade and blossom, Sweet small voices, odorous, Tender pleaders in my cause, That shall speak me as I was-- When the grass grows over me.

When the grass shall cover me! Ah, belovëd, in my sorrow Very patient, I can wait, Knowing that, or soon or late, There will dawn a clearer morrow: When your heart will moan: "Alas! Now I know how true she was; Now I know how dear she was"-- When the grass grows over me!

Ina Coolbrith  (1841-1928) 

Idaho Springs Cemetery, Idaho Springs, Colorado

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At the Grave of Margaret

The waning moon weeps o'er thy grave, dear Margaret; Night's dewy tears hang on the bending grass. O let me weep my sorrows o'er it too, Though from each grave there come a vapory _ghost_, To pity my unfledged soul that cannot rise To where in beauty thou, with the free, art soaring!-- O, I will worship thee with tears! with tears I'll ever speak of thee; for only they Can tell our thoughts of thee. Let no one say That sorrowing is vain--it is the dew That falls at evening from our heaven of _love_. One drop of sorrow heals the troubled heart More than a thousand tongues of consolation. Sweet Sorrow, still with thee O let me kneel Beside this peaceful grave, and all alone! Away all forms of custom, pomp, and show; And let no outward thing obstruct the flood That gushes from my heart; but, sunk into A very dungeon of abstracted thought, And with one sole idea in my mind Of the sweet form that here in peace is sleeping, O let me bend--a weeping willow o'er it-- Till, tear by tear, this flesh thaw to the earth, And, thought by thought, my soul steal from its prison, Meeting beyond, in the unseen world of spirit, With thee, beloved, sweet, lost, lovely being!

Robert Leighton (1822-1869)

Central City Cemetery, Central City,  Colorado 

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Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

- JOHN DONNE

*Golden Hill Cemetery of WSBS, Denver, Co

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The Unreturning Suddenly night crushed out the day and hurled Her remnants over cloud-peaks, thunder-walled. Then fell a stillness such as harks appalled When far-gone dead return upon the world. There watched I for the Dead; but no ghost woke. Each one whom Life exiled I named and called. But they were all too far, or dumbed, or thralled, And never one fared back to me or spoke. Then peered the indefinite unshapen dawn With vacant gloaming, sad as half-lit minds, The weak-limned hour when sick men's sighs are drained. And while I wondered on their being withdrawn, Gagged by the smothering Wing which none unbinds, I dreaded even a heaven with doors so chained.

- Wilfred Owen

*Fairmount Cemetery, Denver, Colorado (at dusk)

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They That Love Beyond the World

They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it, death cannot kill what never dies. Nor can spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same divine principle, the root and record of their friendship. If absence be not death, neither is theirs. Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass, they see face to face; and their converse is free as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

-William Penn (1644-1718)

*Tower of Memories, Olinger Crown Hill Mortuary & Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado

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There is No Night Without a Dawning

There is no night without a dawning

No winter without a spring

And beyond the dark horizon

Our hearts will once more sing

For those who leave us for a while

Have only gone away

Our of a restless, care worn world

Into a brighter day

- Helen Steiner Rice (1900-1981)

*Tower Of Memories, Olinger Crown Hill Mortuary & Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado

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Death of an Infant

Death found strange beauty on that cherub brow, And dash’d it out. There was a tint of rose On cheek and lip;–he touch’d the veins with ice, And the rose faded.–Forth from those blue eyes There spoke a wishful tenderness,–a doubt Whether to grieve or sleep, which Innocence Alone can wear. With ruthless haste he bound The silken fringes of the curtaining lids For ever. There had been a murmuring sound With which the babe would claim its mother’s ear, Charming her even to tears. The spoiler set His seal of silence. But there beam’d a smile So fix’d and holy from that marble brow,– Death gazed and left it there;–he dared not steal The signet-ring of Heaven.

-Lydia H. Sigourney (1791-1865)

* Idaho Springs Cemetery, Idaho Springs, Colorado

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When Doves Cry

How can you just leave me standing? Alone in a world so cold? Maybe I'm just too demanding Maybe I'm just like my father, too bold Maybe you're just like my mother She's never satisfied Why do we scream at each other This is what it sounds like When doves cry

-Prince (1984)

*Stained Glass window in the Tower of Memories in Olinger Crown Hill Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado

* Rest in Peace, Prince Rogers Nelson (1958-2016)

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Ode To Autumn

Season of gusty days and cloudy nights, The wind which showers wine apples to the ground Blows a midday the long, pale, lunar lights O'er weedy fields with melancholy sound. Summer had gone, but she has left a show Of downy clouds against the autumn sky, Which the chill breezes chafe until they glow- Ghosts of that luxury Which now is by.

The golden trees against a sky of June Seem like a life that is too soon grown gray; Through smothering clouds the large autumnal moon Rolls argently her undiminished way. The wonder of night's bright processional Abates not with the fading of the flowers, Still glorious on all the Earth doth fall- but for those withered bowers The pain is ours.

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If spring and summer be thy mask, O year, Which falls in autumn, leaving hideous The thing we deemed was to out being dear, Then life may not be that it seems to us In youth- but sometimes may reveal- When the worn heart the shock can scarcely bear

-Edgar Lee Masters (August 1923)

*Photos taken at Fairmount Cemetery, Denver, Colorado *Poem from poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine

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When All That's Left Is Love

When I die If you need to weep Cry for someone   Walking the street beside you. You can love me most by letting Hands touch hands, and Souls touch souls. You can love me most by Sharing your Simchas and Multiplying your Mitzvot. You can love me most by Letting me live in your eyes And not on your mind. And when you say Kaddish for me Remember what our Torah teaches, Love doesn’t die People do. So when all that’s left of me is love Give me away.

-Rabbi Allen S. Maller

*photos taken at Golden Hill Cemetery of W.S.B.S, Lakewood, Colorado

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The West Side Benevolent Society purchased the hill section the Golden Hill Cemetery in 1908. It basically served as a burial ground for the many Jewish tuberculosis patients who came to Colorado for a cure. Most were patients from the Jewish Consumptive Relief Society (JCRS) This Hill section was set aside for indigents whose families were unable to afford proper burials. There were approximately 700 graves identified by metal markers with the names of the deceased written on cards that were inserted into the markers. Over the years, the Hill section was neglected and fell into disrepair compared to the rest of the cemetery, which was well manicured. Recently, there have been efforts to improve the section’s appearance. This part of the cemetery has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. It represents the efforts of the Jewish community to provide a dignified burial site for its poorer members. -http://historiclakewood.org

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The Mountain Cemetery

With their harsh leaves old rhododendrons fill The crevices in grave plots’ broken stones. The bees renew the blossoms they destroy, While in the burning air the pines rise still, Commemorating long forgotten biers. Their roots replace the semblance of these bones.

The weight of cool, of imperceptible dust That came from nothing and to nothing came Is light within the earth and on the air. The change that so renews itself is just. The enormous, sundry platitude of death Is for these bones, bees, trees, and leaves the same.

And splayed upon the ground and through the trees The mountains’ shadow fills and cools the air, Smoothing the shape of headstones to the earth. The rhododendrons suffer with the bees Whose struggles loose ripe petals to the earth, The heaviest burden it shall ever bear.

Our hard earned knowledge fits us for such sleep. Although the spring must come, it passes too To form the burden suffered for what comes. Whatever we would give our souls to keep Is merely part of what we call the soul; What we of time would threaten to undo

All time in its slow scrutiny has done. For on the grass that starts about the feet The body’s shadow turns, to shape in time, Soon grown preponderant with creeping shade, The final shadow that is turn of earth; And what seems won paid for as in defeat.

-Edgar Bowers

*Poem from Collected Poems (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997) *Photos taken at Idaho Springs Cemetery, Idaho Springs, Colorado

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Away

I cannot say and I will not say That she is dead, she is just away. With a cheery smile and a wave of hand She has wandered into an unknown land; And left us dreaming how very fair Its needs must be, since she lingers there. And you-oh you, who the wildest yearn From the old-time step and the glad return- Think of her faring on, as dear In the love of there, as the love of here Think of her still the same way, I say; She is not dead, she is just away.

-James Whitcomb Riley, American poet (1849 – 1916)

Mount Olivet Cemetery, wheat Ridge, Colorado

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The Snow

In no way that I chose to go could I escape the falling snow

I shut my eyes, wet with my fears: the snow still whispered at my ears.

I stopped my ears in deaf disguise: the snow still fell before my eyes.

Snow was my comrade, snow my fate, in a country huge and desolate.

My footsteps made a shallow space, and then the snow filled up the place,

and all the walking I had done was on a journey not begun.

I did not know the distance gone, but resolutely traveled on

while silently on every hand fell the sorrow of the land,

and no way that I chose to go could lead me from the grief of snow.

-Clifford Dyment

*Poem from the book Nighttouch: Journeying into the Realms of Nightmare

*Photos taken at Mount Olivet Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado

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THIS IS A CEMETERY-  Lives Are Commemorated - Deaths Are Recorded Families Are Reunited - Memories Are Made Tangible And Love Is Undisguised - This Is A Cemetery

 Communities Accord Respect Families Bestow Reverence, Historians Seek Information And Our Heritage Is Thereby Enriched

 Testimonials Of Devotion, Pride And Remembrance Are Carved In Stone To Pay Warm Tribute To Accomplishments And To The Life - Not The Death Of A Loved On, The Cemetery Is Homeland For Family Memorials That Are A Sustaining Source Od Comfort To The Living

 A Cemetery Is A History of People - A Perpetual Record Of Yesterday And A Sanctuary Of Peace And Quiet Today, A Cemetery Exists Because Every Life Is Worth Loving And Remembering - Always.

Golden Cemetery, Golden, Co.