There are softly flying flapping birds that flit, turn and fly around the broad expanse of head stones, laid out almost a miles width from the gate to the back fence and a half mile across from side to side. The majority are iron white crosses in straight lines and the others are placed inside of fences, with the wrappings of the black, still shiny from over a hundred years ago.
Dawson, New Mexico, fourteen miles north of Cimarron, across the tightened expanse of the mountains, was the place of the coking ovens, and where the coal could be pulled from the surface or deep inside the mines. 263 men died in 1913 and 123 died in 1923, all of fire and explosion inside the mines. The only thing left there is the gated cemetery, with 600 crosses, and the graves of hundreds more of those who knew or were around them as well.
The stickers wrap your feet and socks, the slight uphill traverse through dust and sand and ragged plants that are on each grave leave them partially covered, partially exposed. Wooden crosses mark older graves with split brown coatings, and iron white crosses cover the hillside like flowers forever in bloom. Graves of wives, children and special men have black fences around them, each full of natures growth. The town ceased to be in 1950 and 74 years later there is only the cemetery left to show.
The cactus blooms throughout, bringing the prettiness of itself to this cold hard land.
Ralph Peck
Photo by Ralph Peck
Dawson’s Cemetery,
Dawson New Mexico
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