Walk Among the Tombstones

The Way of the Cross

 Fluffy white clouds lifted me off like a hippie chick in an electro-pop tune. They flanked the bright and sunny hills beckoning the Flaneur to a certain part of town.
On the way there, the marquee of the Grand Lake Theater read "Walk Among the Tombstones." This portent appeared to be an admonitory and tutelary bit of advice which he followed.

 1.

Going There

 We have been drought-stricken for quite some time hereabouts,

A small rainy front went through and the green grass returns,

that's the eastern side of the rockridge after which this area  is named

The Chapel of Memories

Today's magnificent clouds drew me

A very edible apples

Growing on that small tree in the nook,

Taboo snapped with a bite of forbidden fruit

An outstanding stained glass window,

The variegated palette of a authentic artist,

Wall paint splatters its remarkable survival

Unprotected in this open and deserted place

 2.

Irish Catholic America

A place which requires no further introduction

 We don't worship the Blessed Mother 

We venerate her and ask her to pray for us,

"O Virgin Mary,

 Please pray for abundant rain this year"

A humble Roman Catholic cemetery 

Rather free of the vanity that characterizes

The grandiose Mountain View of the Protestants

Lording over all on the higher hillside

The narrow confines of a Hebrew burial ground lie in between

St Mary's was founded by the Irish in the Nineteenth century

Thoma Foley lies here

He began life in the faraway land of Eire,

A continent and an ocean lie between

.

 "Corky Row"

Some may have been what we used to call shanty Irish

How the place has been let go,

It's a shame and a sin

Only a short hop here

from the golf course next door

with its manor house, so grand, so ersatz

Sky so blue it breaks your heart, said Jack Kerouac

A fit and fine place to await
the Glorious Second Coming of the Lord

Green grow the graves over the Irish

(County Cork, what did I say?)

What some later arrivals looked like,

Passing over into the sea of souls around 1930

Peace and rest to all the sturdy souls
who lie here 

3.

Coming Back down

Look homeward, Angel face,
Time to climb down again

through St Mary's gate

Over the rooftops

of the old Piedmont Plateau

Some ropes came in handy, 

Careful of treacherous arachnids

And down to the old sidewalk on Piedmont Avenue

Celtic Samhain seen as a California Hallowe'en

Approaching absolute orange

When the Flaneur returned home, a bugged-out emergency warning interrupted his radio program to warn of severe thunderstorms in Napa, quarter-size hail was falling from all those photogenic thunder cloud-heads he had savored.

26 September 2014