I found little John Smith half-buried in the dirt, out back between the cow paddock and the barn. I kicked back a little of the gummy mud, and stood him upright from the first time in decades. He was just eight months old when he died, on December 19, 1868. The cattle watched while I poked around, countless of their kind having passed since the loss of John. I don't know his parents or siblings, but the Smith family continued in this spot as late as the 1970s, farming the surface of the land they buried their young son under. These are stories slow to be remembered, as we aim ourselves down more direct lines, ancestor to descendant. The sons and daughters briefly born are slowly slipped to the edges, broken branches off their family trees. Our great-aunts and great-uncles crave the thing most primary – remembrance. I stood a while, and listened while the farmer talked to the man who showed me here, but I slowly lost the sound to sight. Drifting through the hardworn memory, pelted by the scattered rain, washing the filthy stone.
March 26, 2024
Black Rock, Nova Scotia
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