Memorial to the Living Dead
What Shall We Say of the Bones, Unclean?
“What shall we who count our days and bow
Our heads with a commemorial woe
In the ribboned coats of grim felicity,
What shall we say of the bones, unclean,
Whose verdurous anonymity will grow?
The ragged arms, the ragged heads and eyes
Lost in these acres of the insane green?”
- Allen Tate
The Endless War
Americans are at war across the country and around the globe, so who can blame us for hardly noticing the ones who carry rifles? It’s impossible to know the contours of every front, especially when so little is at stake.
We are a people awash in conflict. War, in one form or another, imposes on us daily, trespassing on private moments and invading our most sacred places. But whether we like it or not, it binds us together when everything falls apart. No need to travel halfway around the world, when everyone can enlist—everyone can be a hero.
Is it any surprise that the shopworn praise we once reserved for war heroes now applies to drag queens, pornographers, and sexless tuft-hunters? Heroism no longer bleeds, nor does it sweat—unless from desire. And blood no longer makes the green grass grow; it sure as hell doesn’t pay the bills, much less buy you a mansion in Topanga Canyon.
The nobodies who still take up the rifle, catching bullets for $1,900 a month, are an anachronism. They still haven’t realized that Granddaddy was a Nabataean, and his tales of Patton from the last good war might as well be odes to al-Uzza. Relics of a sinful past, they’re still waving a flag with only three colors. Do they know the world’s changed?
The dead are hidden under clean, pearly rows. Their last moments titillate crowds, who feast on popcorn and suck on liquid sugar like hogs at the trough. But their cold eyes stare on, long after the flagwavers and fundraisers have had their fill. And sometimes their voices carry on the wind, ghostly whispers that only mothers and brothers can hear; for the former, a child’s jabbering, and the latter, the shout of a man.
This is where the living dead reside, in that hollow space between the land of spirits and a world of holy wars, hog troughs, and palatial estates in Topanga Canyon. When holy wars only bring dishonor, the quiet land beckons.
So what do we say for the living dead?
What is their memorial?
Maybe it’s a quiet afternoon, when it’s so still you can hear yourself breathing, and the sun splashes down—and in that moment you know that you are, and always were, and might yet become. And you know there’s nothing more to say.