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The ‘Former’ Grave-Place
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by KR Slade
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- In Klaipeda’s Sculpture Park,
- I heard the tour-guide say,
- “…once was a graveyard, here…”
- And, sure-enough the tourist sign
- proclaimed, “former burial ground”.
- And, the tourbook read,
- “previously a cemetery”.
- But, they all did agree,
- ‘destroyed in WWII’.
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- As I walked my way,
- past a hundred sculptures,
- none more-than two-decades-old,
- all celebrating life,
- I found monuments to departed,
- and scores of gravestones.
- So, this ‘former’ graveyard,
- burial ground, or cemetery, is
- still very much a graveyard,
- burial ground, and cemetery:
- it remains a place of graves.
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- As I wandered my way,
- I wised to wondering . . .
- ‘Once is for-always for
- a place of graves’;
- a grave-place is forever;
- a grave can not stop being,
- even if remains do not remain.
- In actuality, any grave-place
- is the only thing permanent
- that Man can make.
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All Rights Reserved: 2007 kenmunications <a t> gmail.com
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Biographical Note
Ken-Russell Slade, B.S., M.Ed., M.R.E., J.D., was born in Providence, Rhode Island (USA), and was educated in Boston, Massachusetts (USA). His paternal grandparents (and their families) were Lithuanian (from the Trakai — Kaunas region, notably Guronys, in Zasliai); “Slade” is a shortened and anglicized version of the family name: “Sladkevičius”. In January 2004, Ken arrived in Lithuania, from Quebec (city; Canada) where he had lived for 13 years.
More recently, he has retired as an attorney of trial law, in the courts of various US states and many USA federal jurisdictions, including practice as a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. He is now engaged full-time in his life-long primary interest: writing — usually about Lithuania — primarily about “social reality”; often text-editing (revising) English-language writings (original-language and translations); and, private teaching of English. Occasionally, he continues a life-long secondary interest: acting [i.e., stage, television, cinema; and voice recordings (e.g., narrations, voice-overs, radio, commercials)].
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LinkedIn public profile:
http://lt.linkedin.com/pub/ken-russell-slade/b/425/716
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