As strange as it may sound, Bonventure Cemetery in Savannah Georgia may be one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. The towering oak trees are hundreds of years old, and so are some of its permanent residents. My favorite thing about this old place, however, is the art. If it were anywhere else, it would be ordinary.
Canon 6D with 50mm f/1.2L, adjusted in Lightroom.
A few more to come…
Positively Peachy 
Brooke, I think the physical beauty you find in cemeteries is tied to the tranquility and dignity in the purpose for which they exist. Many people consider cemeteries spooky and macabre. I never have. To me, they’re peaceful and tranquil. When I was stationed in San Diego, I occasionally took a good book and takout from a fast food restaurant to the cemetery on Point Loma, the peninsula that towers over the channel that curls around into San Diego Bay. I’d park in a remote place in the shade, roll down my windows to let the ocean breeze blow in, and eat my sandwich and read my book. I’d occasionally doze off to the sound of the breeze in the surrounding trees.
When my sister and brother-in-law and their two kids lived near Frankfurt, Germany for a year, Terry would take the kids bike riding into the country side. They frequently stopped at cemeteries to read the headstones and use their limited German vocabulary to determine family and local history from what they read. Terry said it was sobering to read the many deaths that took place from 1939 to 1945, and the men who died in their 20s and 30s during those years – soldiers killed in the war.
That reminds me of an old German Navy saying: “Auf einem seemann’s grabe, da gruhen keine rosen.” (No roses grow on a sailor’s grave.)
I vaguely recall the final chapter of James Michener’s “Tales of the South Pacific” in which a Navy officer visits a small military cemetery on a remote island. He is greeted by two elderly black men assigned to the cemetery, and they give him a tour. It’s a quietly descriptive and very touching chapter that sums up the ultimate price of war.
Chuck the Pensive
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