Where the cemetery sloped away to the flowing waters of the Schuylkill River the land became heavily wooded.
Across the river was a city of long disused stone mills and church spires that I visited on days away from Hennesey's market. I loved how the weak light of winter fell on the gray schist of the buildings, reminding me always of childhood. I went there.
On a steeper hill I stopped and turned to look back across the river toward the cemetery. A bird circled black on the whiteness of an obelisk peak. I thought of Eileen and tears rose again in my eyes. Just then a clergyman in black walked past by on the sidwalk all silence and reserve, hands clasped behind himself. Observing him disappear around a bend in the street I thought of church; of mass. I hadn't been in years. I climbed that very high street to where the heavy stone steps of the church began and, climbing them, opened the thick wooden door. It was extremely dark and smelled of incense. I thought of the tombs and took a seat on a creaking pew and then waited.

I was lost. All that I had hoped for was taken away from me.

The sky seemed to have fallen. My body ached.
I walked to the cemetery past the tombs and obelisks that I had loved for years alone, their whiteness and grayness admist the greeness of the grass and trees seeming to caution me from what I knew not.

The manager of the cemetery, a silent man with a black beard lived in a quiet cottage by the southern gate. I decided to speak to him. I stepped inside and there he was at a table apparently doing his taxes or some other work. There were large photographs of large obelisks framed above his dark head. He looked up. His eyes seemed confused.
'Do you have work?' I asked. 'Anything at all?'
He shuffled the papers and then stared at the ceiling for some time. He seemed confused. Then he cleared his throat.

'Please get out,' he said pointing to the door. 'And don't come back to this cemetery.'

"But this is a public cemetery" I said.

"No, it is certainly not," he said. "I don't want to see you here again."