The Cracked Acorn: Beside the Road

Moses took the bones of Joseph with him because Joseph had made the Israelites swear an oath. He had said, “God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up with you from this place.” (Exodus 13:19)

It sits beside the road, once in its glory could be easily noticed, but now time has gone by and traffic speeds on its way into Culpeper to for bargains at one of the Superstores open 24/7. One must be traveling slowly and look to the right and there it is in a madness of timothy, foxtail, clover, and different types of grass almost covering its once moment of emplacements. Mother nature is doing its best to hide this interloper. We see these appointments of kindness due to sadness and loss alongside other roads and highways. Some are complaining to the Highway Departments that these are distracting and could cause accidents, for a lack of a reason.

How highway monuments got started, when and where, no one knows, they have sprung up. Some are works of art and have tiny white stone encirclements and toys or some items that once belonged to the departed. They are a reminder of human weakness and moments of terrifying strokes of death and injury. Life and death decisions were made at these spots by rescue people and emergency medical technicals. Even though we somewhere at one time or another have been ‘forced’ in the workplace to watch films showing what speed and drugs and alcohol can do at 70 miles per hour on the roads, yet, we go out and the faults of mankind fail to disappear.

Within this random chaotic arrangement of clover, weeds, and display of bucolic sent from above flowers is a subliminal message. The staked unstable monument is a styrofoam cross with its headdress of WalMart vinyl chain of floral flowers. It is the cross and those who sat it in the ground must believe that there is a God and that there is hope and that eventually somewhere beyond this arena of passing joys and moments of sadness is another place, eternal and there we shall all meet again.

I know and you know that this could be an inappreciable place and why would anyone want to do this, sits across to be soon cast into the landfill or crushed by an attempt to mow and clear the byways for passing motorists. I could answer that I would have the answers to more of those questions that all of us face from time to time and have to answer, “I don’t know!” and, hope this is enough to have closure.

“I spent all day staring at a leaf, I know that my time here is brief” – John Hiatt –