Dead Terrys and an experimental poem

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John and I went up to the Enfield Street Cemetery today. I had heard that the Terry family was big in Enfield, but the last I knew, my ancestor was an orphan who was adopted by one of the Terrys, with the assumption that they were uncle and nephew, but no documented proof. Apparently that was either wrong or has changed. My father, Arthur Booth Terry, according to Ancestor.com, is a direct descendant of Stephen Terry, who came from Wiltshire, England, and worked with the Peases, Abbeys, and Olmsteds to found Enfield. (That may be only vaguely correct, but whaddaya want, it's 1:00 a.m.)

Today Enfield vies for the title of armpit of New England, and is best (or worst) remembered as the site where Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon, 'Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God'. That notwithstanding, it contains many dead Terrys, many of them Revolutionary War soldiers, with very cool gravestones. (The Penelope Terry Abbey chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution maintains the cemetery.) I have yet to fix most of them (the photos, not the gravestones or, Goddess forbid, the Terrys) in Photoshop, but since I know you're holding your breath, here is the stone of one Benjamin Terry, who died in 1773.


More, of course, to come.

I was reading on my main breast cancer list today, where one member talked about a workshop she had recently attended. One of the exercises was to write the words 'MY INNER HEALER' vertically down a page, and write a poem with the words' initial letters as the start of each line. I decided to try it, and this is what I came up with:

May is glorious month, May is

Year that breaks to tiny, glistening moments, shining now as then.
. . .

I walk by water side

Near where the cormorants fish, and diving terns collide.

Now and again I feel you there,

Earth's liquid womb and grave,

Returning, yes, returning, deep and wide.
. . .

How do I find You, Mother? Where, and when?

Earth gives the answer: die.

All must, in body

Lie in dust. Yet every living cell becomes

Earth's body, giving life in fruit and flower--

Reward enough for me, sweet by and by.

I thought this all sort of came together today, Memorial Day, although I can't swear that it isn't just chemo brain hitting me for all it's worth. Anyway, goodnight, everyone. I love you all.

May
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