Canto for the Dead
What do we owe the Dead?
I say Nothing.
I say that for a living creature to suffer for the sake of the Dead? Is a crime, against the Living.
I say the proper way of life is the Babe suckles from his Mother’s teat.
And for a Mother to drink from the blood of her Babe—that is the way of the Vamp.
What do we gain from lauding the Dead?
What do we gain from learning the Dead?
What do we gain from the dust of our Fathers?
We join their project of pottery. In killing kilns we cleanse and set their dust to clay.
And become a Part, with Purposes—stretching back before our birth and onward past our death-day.
It is proper for a man to plant chestnuts, which will bear no fruit til after his passing.
It is not proper for a man to cut down chestnut trees his father planted, for the sake of kindling fire.
It is not right to melt statues in the city square for cannons.
The plans of the Dead may merit their following.
It is not proper that we the Living will follow, unless we believe in their merits.
The plans of the Dead may merit their following, if we the Living see wisdom within them.
The plans of the Dead may merit their following, though we fail to see the wisdom within them.
Some that is true, we struggle to justify. Much that we justify’s far from the truth.
We may put up statues to honor the Dead; but they are not for the Dead, unseeing.
Each tombstone and text we preserve to inspire the Living.
To raise them to an idea of their own stones immortal.
To raise them to some higher standard.
To remind them of the old stones, that cannot be deciphered.
But we do this for the Living.
It is proper, that a Father suggest his Son’s fate.
It is not proper, that a Father control his Son’s fate.
For the Father is born of an Old World, long-lost.
For the Father is born of a world of bleached bones and flooded valleys.
For the Son is Hegelian hybrid, wiser than either their bygone theses.
It is proper that a Son reject the will of his Father, til after his Father has passed.
It is proper, that he come to terms with the will of his Father, after his Father has passed.
It is proper that he pick up his Father’s project, and merge his rebellion with piety, then.
For the Living and not for the Dead.
The Living may enter in contracts, extending past their curtain of death.
And we may observe the contracts of those who are past, and carry their terms as they bid.
But we do it for the Living, who wish to enter such contracts, and to feel secure that the terms will be carried.
In that we act as if we owe the Dead, we do it for we owe the Living.
We may look back, and over our shoulders, walking a path in the gloam.
But the glance is in service of footfalling forward.
Of a picking our way through the angular stones, which lie there, arrayed in the dirt.