Frozen love

We went to the graveyard yesterday, to light candles for friends and relatives that has passed away. Unlike some cultures, who remember their dead at the end of october, we do so during the winter solstice here up north. We arrived the first graveyard in the early afternoon, just when it was beginning to get dark. It was a beautiful day, cold, crisp and clear. Most graves had had visitors during the weekend, and I was struck by the beauty of them; the frozen greens and flowers, the burning candles, the small tokens put there to comfort souls - mostly the living, I suspect. The unanswered questions and helplessness of a handwritten note; a colored paper heart; a letter tucked in between the pine cones and twigs of juniper. The love so awkwardly communicated by a plastic toy; a Santa; stone carved kittens. The call for higher powers seen in tacky ceramic angels and the words hammered into the stones. The sadness and the beauty of it all.

Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me.

And we bow respectfully to thee, Death, with our unanswered questions, helplessness, love and beauty.