Wildwood
​
Cast me ashes as the sky winds fly
by land or lake, hill or vail
Don’t matter to me where my ashes lay
Just carve me a name in Wildwood
 
Cast me ashes where the high winds rise
over desert, canyon or mountainside, 
Don’t matter to me where my ashes’ll be
Just leave me a name in Wildwood.
 
Cast me ashes in the ground by my stone
on the wooded slope with my ancestors
Don’t matter to me who comes to see
Just lay me to rest in Wildwood
 
Cast me ashes where my people walked
over hills, fields, and wilderness
Don’t matter to me what anyone thinks
Just make me a nest in Wildwood.
 
Six generations now lay on this plot 
three generations more on the hills beyond
Don’t matter to me if you know or not
Just set me a place in Wildwood
 
Cast me ashes, cast then down
Feed my dust back to the ground
Pray and pray for everyone gone
And live your blessings all life long
 
Cast your thoughts into heaven’s gaze
in this tranquil site where our dead now lie
Set down your worry, lay aside your cares
Give thanks for the haven named Wildwood.
 
Anora Sutherland McGaha
Dec 8 2017 - Jun 2023
​

Let us go up to Wildwood,
Haven on a starry hill,
Where one by one beneath their names
Those we love lie still,
Still as the shadows touch them
And the west pales from its red,
Still in the fresh September night
The mists creep o'er the dead.

Is it ghosts that walk in Wildwood,
Or only living trees,
That shimmer past beneath the stars
And touch us with the breeze?
This tender frail beseeching,
This presence tremulous,
Is it man to earth outreaching?
Is it earth that yearns for us?

Let us go up to Wildwood,
And think on men we knew,
Who from the peace wherein they lie,
Brother of earth and tree and sky,
Still through their quenchless love draw nigh
And watch to keep us true.

- John Erskine, Prof at Amherst College
(probably written between 1903-1909)