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| Anglican Cemetery, Shillong, India |
The gate was locked but a groundskeeper heard us and let us in to wander. There is still a small chapel and he was using the bushes to dry laundry. Many of the tombstones had been relocated there from tea plantations and battles sites in Assam. There weren't as many women and children as I would have imagined and the cemetery is still being used for burials. It was a sweet spot and I slipped the caretaker a little money for upkeep.
The photos are a great visual history of the cemetery you visited.
ReplyDeletethese images say so much, joan. thank you.
ReplyDeleteMade me think or THE SOLDIER by Rupert Brooke. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteIf I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Joan - wandering boneyards is one of my all time favorite things. Thank you for sharing this one, as I will no doubt never get to it in person. 8-)
ReplyDeleteRick - the perfect poem for this post. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteMarcheline - We do have that in common. Cemeteries tell such stories. I was in pain passing a lot of other ones that looked fascinating but I couldn't make them stop the jeep for everything I wanted to take photos of.