Thursday, January 5, 2006

Workmen put the finishing touches on a freshly dug grave as I walk by the large cemetery near our house this cold, gray afternoon. There must be a mile of chainlink along this road, between our home and the bank. Wire fencing to keep the dead in. Between headstones there is mainly just cropped, winter-sleeping grass, but every so often I pass under a juniper tree. They are planted along the fence here and there, in clumped lines of three or five. A lot of garbage collects here, pushing itself up against the foot of the fence. Motorists toss all sorts of crap out of their vehicles as they speed by – cans, bottles, junk food wrappers, cardboard boxes, condoms, snuff containers and cigarette wrappers, cellophane, paper and plastic grocery bags. It all finds its way onto the slim strip of grass that extends about a foot beyond the fence, next to the sidewalk. Mixed in with the detritus are small, blue pearls, clustered in the places where the shadows of juniper trees would be were there any sun. I stop to gather a handful. I rub them together in my gloved hands and breathe in their Christmassy scent.

I keep walking until I near the last group of scraggly trees, and there I stop again and add a few more juniper berries to my collection. At the corner, where the fence turns west and so do I, a funeral procession advances through the intersection, headlights glowing and little flags on each hood. I wonder if they’re going to stop at the new grave I just passed. It’s a good day for a burial: cold, but not bitter; slate-gray sky, but no rain. There are fragrant junipers near the grave.

I carry the berries home and put them in a small, white, Japanese-style teacup. I crush them a bit with my fingers and inhale again, deeply.