The Gravesite

I don’t always admire the sun.  Sometimes, it burns my skin and cracks the earth at my feet.  But, yesterday, the springtime sun felt like a warm kiss against my entire body.

At midday, encouraged by the warmth, I strode out into the honey-colored prairie grasses in front of my home.  I was hoping to discover the first green fingers of bitterroot emerging from the soil.  Maybe a tufted phlox renewing against open ground.

Late last spring I buried Carmel, one of my cats, below a long-needled pine tree at the rim of the gulch at the back of my home.  Near the end of summer a grave robber tried to burrow down to Carmel.  Maybe a skunk.  Maybe a fox or run-around dog.

When I discovered the transgression, I raked the disturbed stones and dirt and pine needles back into the hole.

Yesterday, thinking about Carmel, I turned back and walked to his gravesite. 

A new layer of shed pine needles lay overtop Carmel’s resting place.  The needles shone a deep red where brushed by sunlight.  Above me, the branches and green needles of the tree lifted a little in a cool up-wind from iced-over lake below.

He was a good boy.

Spring is the hardest season.  Not winter.  Spring is when you realized we are not all coming alive again.

-- Mitchell Hegman