Velonia Bailey & Ebenezer True

How I made a new (imaginary) friend on a walk in the cemetery

I live near a large Victorian cemetery full of winding paths, ponds, and beautiful trees in addition to the gravestones you’d expect. There are grand mausoleums and granite tombs set into a hillside, statues of weeping angels, and a Civil War monument.

It is really as much a park for our neighborhood as it is a burial ground, though it is still very much in use for new graves. People jog and walk there all the time, and many a neighborhood child has learned to ride a bike on the quiet inner paths that are largely free of cars.

I think I’ve probably walked or biked every path, road, and walkway. Yet I still see stones I’ve never noticed before. Often a brisk walk will become a lengthy meander as I find myself stopping to read names and dates and stories. There are so many stories, it kind of takes my breath away. Some carved into stone slabs for all to read, others suggested by dates and proximity. Other stories are entirely made up, flights of fancy in my head inspired by a particular gravestone or family grouping.

The poem below is based on one of the latter. A pair of stones caught my eye one day and the names got stuck in my head. Wandering in this cemetery reminds me how many generations have called this city, my street, and even my own house, home. It’s humbling, and also wonderful to think of the others who have loved this place the way we do.

---

Velonia Bailey & Ebenezer True

Velonia Bailey and Ebenezer True 
have markers of brilliant white, 
so bright they almost glow 
in the shade of the trees

For a moment I think
they must be brand new 
But softened edges 
and pitting show their age
 
If I touched them they’d feel sugary,
the corrosive rain of New England 
eating slowly away at marble 
that once felt like soft glass 

Ebenezer has a faint tinge 
of mossy green along his edge. 
You might not notice it
if Velonia weren’t so pristine

Their stones are white marvels 
amidst the gray slates and 
speckled granites, and yet 
it’s their names that make me linger 

Who would not wish to know  
Velonia and Ebenezer, to count 
two souls with such resplendent 
names amongst their friends

I imagine spying her across 
the crowd gathered at the grange hall, 
standing on tiptoe, waving my arm 
above my head to catch her eye. 

We’d push our way 
through the crush and embrace,
ignoring the jostling and the heat 
She would smell of linden blossoms

She would hold me at arms length 
and her eyes would crinkle, 
as she leaned in and whispered a bit 
of gossip, a shared joke, in my ear 

Foreheads close together, 
we’d laugh,
though not unkindly, 
at some small folly or vanity 

Then I’d ask after Ebenezer
who had perhaps been unwell
Is he here with you? Is he recovered? 
Oh, yes, certainly, she’d say with a laugh,

He’s well enough for horseshoes, at any rate 
And at that moment the clang 
of metal on metal would sound 
through the open side door 

And we’d turn as one, hand in hand, 
toward the sunlight, stepping out 
onto the granite slab and down 
to the grassy yard below, to cheer him on 

---

Cemeteries in general, and this one in particular have turned up in a number of my poems and posts here. Here’s some additional reading for you if you also enjoy a wander around an old graveyard.

---

---

Thanks for reading, Everyone!