Who indeed, Bill.who indeed.
As a ritual-phobic the, when I see thee things on TV, or passing, I wonder too. They seem to come from many who have nothing to do with those who died. But who feel a need to materially remember? Are they more attuned to the las to us all? Or just into some kind of display? And how do most of ‘us’ )those who pass these sites) react? Thisis one way.
Doug
On Feb 10, 2015, at 1:43 PM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Who loads these offerings
> by roadside death spots?
> Not relatives surely; friends,
> you assume, who have already
> placed flowers on the coffin, in
> chapel, at graveside or urn wall.
>
> But such bouquets fall mourn-short.
> A soul interrupted en route seems now
> to require temporal marking. See those
> propped white crosses tilting, golden
> framed pictures catching the sun's glint,
> printed pages flapping in car-breeze,
>
> oversized stuffed toys nuzzling CDs,
> in loose piles, footy scarves, trophies.
> Emblems continue to accumulate
> at the site of last breath, of sudden
> rupture. There's a reaching in these
> jumbled cairns. Institutions can't cut it.
>
> Even when colours fade, animals
> desecrate, the vacuum remains.
> Not just the absence of the departed,
> but some gapingness the dead
> leave in all of the rest of us,
> for whom the road winds on.
>
Douglas Barbour
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Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
that we are only
as we find out we are
Charles Olson
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