'Hate to be made literate'

Ye Antientist Burial Ground,, in New London, Conn.,  is one of the earliest graveyards in New England and the oldest colonial cemetery in New London County. The hillside lot of 1.5 acres adjoins the original site of the settlement’s first “meeting house’’ (church). There’s a broad view to the east of the Thames River and, on the far shore, the heights of Groton.

The lot was reserved for a burying ground and recorded as such in the summer of 1645 with the  first decedent "of mature age" interred there in 1652. An ordinance of June 6, 1653 set the place apart, declaring: "It shall ever bee for a Common Buriall place, and never be impropriated by any."

"Somehow the blocks of slate and marble hate

to be cut and carved to the dimensions

of Mary Monday’s age and her virtues.

At heart they hurt to be made literate

and they are rebelling, fast as they can,

shedding an edge, a letter, as they go

—a year, a part of a skull, a bone—

it hurts them to stand so long for this

kind of death not theirs. Fast as they can

they are leaning away from their duty

and look down longing for the warm sod.''

From "New England Graveyard, '' by Stephen Sandy