Taken on June 10, 2011
It softens not the heart of man
To look upon the silent tomb;
Why not, when life is but a span,
And heaven or hell is to be his doom?
The reason’s plain, mortality,
He thinks, to him can never come.
He sees that other men must die,
But feels this earth to be his home.
Deluded man, thy thoughts are vain,
This world was not designed for thee,
Thy hast thyself a heaven to gain
Or else, lie down in misery.
Then trifle not with heavenly things,
But make your peace with God,
That you may be on Seraph’s wings
Borne to a peaceful, blest abode.
—inscription on a tomb, Readfield Cemetery
6.10.23: A week or two ago, I imagined that I’d try to reshoot my Poetic Inspirations project, starting on the tenth, twelve years after I began the project. I hadn’t intended to re-take all the images. Rather, I wanted to let the poems again inspire me for a photo, and I was hoping to be significantly less literal this time around. Well, I have since kicked that notion to the curb. I am tired of playing such games to get myself achieving something. I now know that I don’t have to achieve; I can just be. Maybe, instead, I’ll come back to each poem and image and record my impressions.
Take this one, for instance: the photo is mediocre, and I imagined I thought I was saving it or even creating something special by “printing” it in black and white. No matter. Such delusions were important in getting me interested in photography and keeping me shooting. If I had realized how poorly I was doing, I likely would have given up. Instead, I kept going, thinking that my talent was something special. I am happy that such a skewed point of view insulated me from the temptation to put down the camera because I wasn’t good enough. Photography has brought me a great deal of joy.
The poem is something else altogether. Words of wisdom, I likely thought when I found them in the cemetery (the day after my mother’s birthday, after she had been dead six years). Now, I would evaluate the message of the poem this way: words of fear. Who wrote it? I wonder. What kind of childhood did he have? Someone recently tried to convince her followers that funerals are for the benefit of the dead, and I’m sure the majority think she’s right. I know she’s wrong. Funerals are for the living. It lets them try to bury their guilt with their loved ones and reassures them that the dead will stay dead. Honoring the dead comes from fear of the dead. Funeral rites in early civilizations were created to ensure that a soul would have all he needed for his long march through the underworld and therefore would find no reason to come on back and bother the living.
Stella read the poem over my shoulder earlier, and I pointed out the line, “This world was not designed for thee.” She replied, “Then who is it for?”
Exactly.