All cemeteries should have Spanish Moss draped from their trees. This is what I learned while wandering through All Saints Church Cemetery in Pawleys Island, South Carolina.
I was searching for the grave of James Dickey, Poet Laureate of the United States. Before discovering his grave was near my writing retreat, I only knew Dickey from his novel and film Deliverance. I had no idea he was a poet, much less Poet Laureate.
In reviewing what work I could find online, I’ll commend these two poems, The Dusk of Horses and At Darien Bridge. He’s not my favorite poet but his grave is the best so far of the Poets Laureate that I’ve visited.
In Howard Nemerov’s Poets on Poetry, which you can read at the Internet Archive, Dickey wrote, “I came to poetry with no particular qualifications. I had begun to suspect, however, that there is a poet—or a kind of poet—buried in every human being like Ariel in his tree, and that the people whom we are pleased to call poets are only those who have felt the need and contrived the means to release this spirit from its prison.”
I totally agree.
Bartholomew Barker, Poet 
I can hear the banjo refrain..Dah- dah-dah–dah-dah–dshdah dum.
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Yeah, I kept hearing that too even though this was a very wealthy old
slavemoney church yard.LikeLiked by 1 person
Didn’t know that part..m
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For disclosure, I am merely assuming this area gained its wealth on the backs of the enslaved. I have not fully researched the particulars of this parish.
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i particularly enjoyed
At Darien Bridge
Cheers Bartholomew,
DD
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Proud to have introduced you to Mr. Dickey, DD.
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Interesting—I’ll check out Dickey’s poems. I agree about Spanish moss (so pretty) and the quote. Well said!
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Makes me wonder how far north we could get the moss to grow.
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