Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Mount Auburn: Chapters of Poetry & Prose | Page 7

“... upon the borders of two worlds...”
Stairway to Heaven
Mount Auburn was founded as New Englanders were
replacing long-held views about the horrors of death with
more gentle ideas about mortality. The drastic shift to an
acceptance of death as part of the natural cycle of life was
best illustrated in Mount Auburn’s early history by Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow who wrote the following to a
friend after burying his first wife at the Cemetery in 1837:
“Yesterday I was at Mount Auburn, and saw my own grave
dug; that is, my own tomb. I assure you, I looked quietly
down into it, without one feeling of dread.” Poet Robert
Creeley has more recently in time echoed Longfellow’s
same sentiments, celebrating his family’s lot at Mount Auburn
with the poem “Stairway to Heaven.” In 2005 Creeley was
buried on that small rise along Tulip Path he so lovingly
described. His wife, Penelope, shared her husband’s strong
connections to the family lot, making Creeley’s poem
about Mount Auburn all the more resonant.
“To say that Robert loved Mount Auburn is to risk making
his deep, complex feeling for the place sound trite. His
sense of connection to Mount Auburn was as intricate as
his connection to his family, and to New England. He was
born in Arlington, brought home as a baby to Mt. Auburn
St. in Watertown, spent his boyhood in West Acton, went to
boarding school in New Hampshire, to college in Cambridge.
His first child was born in Truro, on Cape Cod. Life took
him far afield, but he was always glad to take any chance
to come back. On several occasions when we were in the
Boston area, Robert brought Will, Hannah and me to
Mount Auburn. He wanted us to see this beautiful place, to
know it through his eyes. He would tell us the family stories
he remembered: stories of his father’s father, who had a
farm on what is now Belmont Hill, stories of why his par-
ents are buried in another nearby Mount Auburn plot, not
in the main family plot. Robert felt a kinship here, with the
people, with the trees, with the roll of the land, the changes
of light and weather. They
were as intrinsically famil-
iar, as deeply known as only
recollection of childhood can
make a place. In life he loved
‘the company,’ as he called
his friends, fellow poets and
beloveds, and liked the idea
of sharing some of the same
company in death, too.”
by Robert Creeley (early 1980’s)
Late one beautiful fall afternoon, soon after we had
moved to Providence, Robert and I made a visit to Mount
Auburn. We did not know then that the end of his life was
approaching so fast. We found Tulip Path quite easily this
time. We strolled along in the unexpected late October
warmth, in shafting golden sunlight and blazing leaves, the
air blue-purple. Robert stood looking out over his family
plot, out to what I have always imagined was Watertown,
where he was born. He was quiet, thoughtful. I asked him
if he felt sad, or spooked. ‘Oh no’, he said, ‘not at all. I feel
comforted. It’s very reassuring. I’m home’.”
Robert Creeley standing at his family’s lot. Photo courtesy of Pen Creeley
There is more online! After visiting Robert Creeley’s grave on Tulip Path, poet Law-
rence Ferlinghetti penned two poems about his experience at Mount Auburn. Visit us
online to read these works, which are shared with Ferlinghetti’s permission. www.moun-
tauburn.org/sweet-auburn-winter-2013/
Point of hill
We’d come to, small
rise there, the friends
now separate, cars
back of us by
lane, the stones,
Bowditch, etc., location,
Tulip Path, hard
to find on the
shaft, that insistent
rise to heaven
goes down and down,
with names like floors,
ledges of these echoes,
Charlotte, Sarah,
Thomas, Annie
and all, as with
wave of hand I’d
wanted them one
way or other to
come, go with them.
Winter 2013 | 5