Walking through a cemetary

In Syracuse there is a huge cemetery that by American standards is really quite old. The cemetery is comprised of hills and a disorderly array of mausoleums and monuments. A few nights ago I walked through a portion of it with my girlfriend and some new acquaintances. It was exceptionally beautiful. I liked the brash pyramids, obelisks, and statues that the older generation’s wealthy left to mark their existence. It felt like walking through a chessboard whose players had both been thoroughly defeated. A hill gave a vantage point of a stone staircase leading to an entire clan’s burial mound—and here, for me, the inartistic, the choices of design seemed significant.

I liked the cemetery more than any museum. I prefer history to style. I like the idea of trans-generational communication, a reaffirmation of Koholeth’s dictum that there is nothing new under the sun:

A young black child who died only a few years ago has a meager wire sign as a marker. The sign is already rusting away. Nearby, a Civil War general is marked by a small castle.

I like this—The appearance of a significant fact that begs for moral evaluation. A disparity of memorial. It begs for a poetic interpretation suggesting depth, feeling, and indignation. Surrounded by so many dead however, the demands of a “principled” justice sound like the annoying cries of children complaining about who gets more candy.