Late November in these parts likes to give us a little preview of what Winter can be like. The bright, colorful skies and foliage of October and early November are gone, and the gray, overcast, leafless and brown days of Winter are yet to come. Now is the transition time - the trees are mostly denuded and what leaves that remain aren't nearly as vibrant as they were, although the grass is still green, but the weather is gray and gloomy. Today is chilly and rainy; it wasn't quite raining when I first went out, but by the time I got back home the sky was drizzling on me.
The two shots below captured the mood of the day. The first shot, from the Common Burying Ground on Farewell St., emphasizes the gray that predominated the day; it also emphasizes a point I've made about colonial-era cemeteries before - the crowding, the sense of a place used for dumping no-longer-needed bones. By the time I took the second shot, of the fishing boats at the dock on the State Pier, the rain had started spitting some, and the boats looked like they were huddled up to the dock against the chill of the drizzle.
The two shots below captured the mood of the day. The first shot, from the Common Burying Ground on Farewell St., emphasizes the gray that predominated the day; it also emphasizes a point I've made about colonial-era cemeteries before - the crowding, the sense of a place used for dumping no-longer-needed bones. By the time I took the second shot, of the fishing boats at the dock on the State Pier, the rain had started spitting some, and the boats looked like they were huddled up to the dock against the chill of the drizzle.
© 2009 by A. Roy Hilbinger
Roy, I love your graveyard pics. It feels like you live in another country, though. All the graveyards 'round here are rather recent.
ReplyDeleteWOW! Amazing! I have seen some sights like that in NC
ReplyDeleteT - Thanks! Well, our settlers got here in 1639. Yours got there in 1841, and while our population boom started right away, yours didn't really kick in until the 1870s and '80s. By then cemeteries had changed over to reflect the Victorian/post-Civil War aesthetic of places to come to visit with the beloved dead. Our cemeteries were formed by the notion that cemeteries were dumping grounds for a no-longer-needed body, hence the starkness of the stones and the crowding. In a sense, we really do live in two separate countries.
ReplyDeleteOtin - Thanks! Which one looks like NC, the graveyard or the fishing boats?
...interesting post. I've never seen a cemetery that crowded. I like your explanation.
ReplyDeleteSometimes the grey days provide the best light. It's warm here but equally gloomy, very humid and grey skies. I love the boats they do look like they're in a huddle! I've said it before but you live in a beautiful part of the world. (Nice hat in your sidebar too you nut!)
ReplyDeleteI think I like your cemetery shots just as much as your fab bird photos... They make me want to go there - well, not real soon - but perhaps to visit.
ReplyDelete