Rose and the Cemetery

Again class made me dig deep...this is a piece where we were supposed to engage the senses, create sentences that vary in length, begin and end disturbingly.  It's loosely based on where my mother is buried in Glenwood Cemetery.  When she was alive she would always want to read the stones of the childrens graves if we found ourselves in a cemetery.  Once I took her to the Milford cemetery.  She loved the gothic images and grand burial sites with carved angels watching over everything.  Wrought Iron was another thing that she enjoyed - as do I.  She opened my eyes to much, I think she would've approved of this weeks assignment.  Miss you Mom...

I hoped she had found peace.  On her gray granite tombstone was a machine carved rose.  Her name had been Rose.  Just a single carved rose, with a wispy somewhat pathetic stem, made by a mechanical punch card like a factory Christmas card would be; mass produced nothing special, a quintessential image.  She hated the redundancy of the red rose which always served to surprise people, that one would hate that iconic image; a Valentine’s Day visual anthem of such recognizable quality.  She used to say people don’t see what’s right in front of them.  Her favorite flower was a pale purple rose that deepened toward a Catholic Lent-like color near the base.  Just then I caught the scent of fresh death in the wind. I glanced at the children’s graves on the hill next to the gnarled oak tree.  The back plots were ancient, their identities, dates, and grief washed away by decades of rain, harsh wind, and snow.  Now they garishly reminded me of a giant in need of dental work; discolored, chipped, and twisted.  The gash of a fresh plot in the neatly clipped lawn held a bounty of flowers.  The gagging scent tasted of carnations and Lily’s.  Rose hadn’t much care for the fragrant Lily of the Valley that bloomed on the dark side of the lake house in spring, though she did admire their tenacity at pushing through the holes of Mason Bricks that lined a small path to the oil tank.  Their white bobble-head flowers would shake in the wind, wearing far too much cheap perfume like the old broads at the nursing home where she volunteered.  Shaken and pickled.  We should’ve taken the time and chosen a more fitting stone, maybe something more in line with the flower she loved.  We should’ve commissioned the stone artist like I had suggested to chip away the rock for a more natural looking timeless bloom to freeze in the granite.  A clap of thunder in the lush valley stirred me from my thoughts.  The green foliage around me was gathering under the punched wounded sky.  I began to back away.  A jagged bolt of lightning hit the oak over the graves of the children long dead, and I realized that she was, indeed, still angry.