Inar Perrara...

I didn't notice the single shadowy graveplot at first. Mostly because I was thoroughly enjoying a late afternoon jog down a gravelled country road after a five hour car ride up from Sault Ste Marie. This was the second of what would be four, excellent adventure runs amidst our seven day - seventeen hundred mile exploration around the outer perimeter of stunning lake Superior.

Plodding around a corner of the road I spied dozens of faded white wooden crosses planted in the ground of an ancient hillside cemetary on my right. Slowing to a walk, I made my way in respectful silence through the crosses and simple stone markers bearing loving testimony to the lives of those who were buried beneath my shoes. Who were these people? What would life have been like fifty, seventy-five or even a hundred years ago in this remote area of Ontario?

After offering a silent prayer that fate had been kind to my deceased companions, I stepped back onto the gravel and continued my journey. It was then that I noticed the small single stone cross sitting alone and forlorn along the roadside to my left, almost as if the grave's resident needed her own special place to dwell on a life that turned out to have ended much too soon. The cross bore a faded metal plaque that said simply; "Inar Perrera, Died - Sept,15 1943. Age - 39". It was at this point that the beginnings of a song entered my head. I finished it last week.

INAR PERRERA

The small stone cross casts it's tiny shadow
Upon the gravesite it rises above,
While in the distance a waterfall rumbles
To the lake down far below...

And as I run on I wonder,
How did you get here beside this road?
All the white wooden crosses that beckon to you
From the green grass on the mountainside,
Who were you? How did you die?
Would I have loved you when you were alive?

Inar Perrara is buried here
And I can't get her out of my mind-
Was she a blonde haired beauty with deep blue eyes,
Who was gone too soon...at thirty nine?

The afternoon sun shines in my eyes
As I make my way back to my room,
Past darkened forests that call out her name-
Making me feel not alone.
For her name comes echoing through the past,
Across the Canadian countryside...
Who were you? How did you die?
Would I have loved you when you were alive?

Inar Perrera is buried here
And I can't get her out of my mind-
Was she a blonde haired beauty with deep blue eyes
Who was gone too soon...at thirty nine?
Inar Perrera, I call your name,
Inar Perrera has gone away-
Inar Perrara will never know...
Gone too soon, at thirty nine.

With a name like "Inar" I just assumed that my graveyard companion had been a woman in her lifetime and let my imagination wander where it wanted. If any of you finds evidence to the contrary about Inar's gender, please...keep it to yourself. Let an old man have his harmless fantasies because after all, some future cemetary visitor may type something creative about our lives. Perhaps we will look down from heaven on them...and smile.