Emily Dickinson's Grave, Amherst

A death-blow is a life blow to some 

Who, till they died, did not alive become;

Who, had they lived, had died, but when

They died, vitality begun. --816, Emily Dickinson

I live a stone throw away from the final resting place of a reclusive poetess Emily Dickinson. I just stumbled across her grave while I was strolling a graveyard like a wandering teenage boy. If you look around, history and wonder are within your reach, waiting for a dialogue between you and the unexpected delight.

Railroad Bridge over the Deerfield, Deerfield-Greenfield

Disused Boston and Maine railroad bridge over the Deerfield River

Google Map

Belchertown State School Cemetery, Belchertown (or lengthy thought about myself)

Also read: Belchertown State School

When one of our guys died, all that we'd have would be a graveside service...[T]he way this would be done is that the undertaker, whom I got to know personally, would come up with the body in the limo, and we'd go to the cemetery, and he'd be saying things to me like, "Now Bob, this guy was a nonentity. Let's not take a lot of time." -- An interview to Robert Perske, a former chaplain at the Kansas Neurological Institute.* Italicized by Shuko K.T.

Nonentity, the word stuck in my head forever. Such a disrespectful remark in a solemn scene of a person's death. Why would he say something like that? Were such remarks out of his character, or just a glimpse of an everyday life at an institution?