Dispatches From the Overworld
by Timothy Juhl
Oakwood Walks
On a recent visit to Oakwood Cemetery, I happened upon an exedra. I was nearly apoplectic. It was like sighting a rare bird. While exedrae have been used in burial since the late 19th century, they are an extravagance; a marker purchased by the well heeled. The Drewry family exedra is surrounded by a number of small stone markers and the visitor can sit in the sun and look out over the grounds amid the generations of Drewrys forever resting.
Oakwood Cemetery was the first cemetery I visited when I moved to Raleigh in 2007. Established in 1869 through a land donation by the Mordecai family, its first purpose was to provide a dignified location to bury North Carolina’s Confederate dead. It is the quintessential cemetery as city park, with lush landscaping, shaded benches, rolling hillsides and brick-paved roads. Many of Raleigh’s founding fathers and mothers are buried here, so too is the first husband of Margaret Mitchell supposedly the inspiration for Rhett Butler. Former Senator and presidential candidate John Edwards’ buried his 17-year-old son here. More recently, Senator Jesse Helms took up residence.
There is a profound sense of history as one walks among Oakwood’s famous and regular folk. A beloved basketball coach is buried here, and near his marker is a contemporary sculpture, “Rubicon” by Paris Alexander, a massive stone doughnut, perhaps the resting place for an artist.
On every visit I make to Oakwood, I stop at the grave of Timothy Bender. I don’t know much about him other than he was a Florida Gator fan (as indicated by the memorabilia left there) and that he died in his early 20s. His tombstone is a black granite, ultra-contemporary architectured monument, sleek and stunning at once. It is a standout among the traditional gravestones nearby.
I will always walk Oakwood’s lawns, study the stones and know the forgotten and near-forgotten. I will make my own residence there one day.
Timothy Juhl - 12.17.08
Archives
Last Word Poetry
by Timothy Juhl
The Last Lines She Never Wrote
for louise
You took every dare in language,
in words.
Like crow or
bone or breath.
The poet gets lucky sometimes,
snatching from the dark
a turn, a bend in the metaphor
--bodies are raincoats
So foolhardy, we poets,
writing death into a cliché.
Despite all our verses, our
sonnets, the sestinas and
villanelles, and all those
unfinished stanzas,
despite our attempts
to define it, defy it
death does not wait
for the ink to dry,
seldom stands for
another revision.
It is the absence of your words
I hear loudest right now
reading your obituary,
the poem
none of us
wanted to write.
Not even a brash wordsmith
such as I, so cavalier,
would think to edit these,
your last lines.
