Sensitive young poets are frequently fascinated with the nature of life ... and death. Although I am not a poet (except for an occasional haiku), as a young man I enjoyed wandering through old graveyards, reading the stones, and wondering about the lives once lived. The generations that toiled before us lived hard lives, and children often died before their parents when a plague swept through.

I photographed these crosses at the back of an old cemetery on Bonaventure Island, Quebec. On this remote island in the Atlantic Ocean just off the Gaspe Peninsula, the old homes are decaying into the earth and all the villagers have moved elsewhere, leaving only spirits to wander the meadows.

Upon examining this photograph, a Catholic nun once remarked to me: "I love the way the crosses are so neatly arranged - it shows that somebody cared." That, and the daisies flowing around the crosses, are what attracted me to take this photograph.

Lee Rentz