Soliloquy

We had been hiking in and around the Jay Cooke State Park, near Duluth Minnesota. Our path led to the Old Thompson Cemetery, almost abandoned and unused for over a hundred years, with those buried there all but forgotten. Only a few headstones remained upright; another dozen or so lay in pieces, slowly sinking into the prairie. The birds were singing all around us. The sky was blue and the air was fresh and sweet. This double grave seemed especially poignant, two lives cut short before they had even really begun. Epidemics were common then, Scarlett Fever, Influenza, Diphtheria and Whooping Cough took many. These children are gone now, but a bit of beauty remains in this organic composition of stone and grass. A soliloquy came to mind, I dedicate it now to Lida and Emma, who died within a few days of each other in the spring of 1882.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high,
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.

Someday I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far
Behind me.
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly.
Birds fly over the rainbow.
Why then, oh why can't I?

If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow
Why, oh why can't I?

-E.Y. Harburg