I had a busy week this week, so I am going to do something different. I am going to give you a poem I wrote that will be part of a collection I release at the end of the year. Speaking of which, you can buy my collection from last year for $5.

It is inspired by a debate up in Seattle whether to subdivide unused portions (as in no graves) of a cemetery to build housing. I’m sure even the Yimby-est among us can see how that went sideways.

I’m also going to point you towards an excellent episode of the Olympia Standard exploring the current crisis at the Timberland Regional Library.

So, no extra reading this week. Enjoy!

Dead Space Problem

1. Character

They wanted to build housing on a cemetery parcel. Technically, subdividing the cemetery parcel in a neighborhood so a new parcel could be made on which housing will be built.

Don’t worry, this isn’t the start of a story about houses being built over dead bodies. They are sure this isn’t what’s going on.

But the neighbors are complaining. Not about the dead, but about the character of the place. About the sanctity of the land. The sanctity of the place to be dead in, instead of a place to be alive in.

2. Modest proposal

How making room for the living makes it harder to operate a cemetery. How does a cemetery even make money?

Cemeteries are financial devices. Living off 10 to 15 percent of the original fee to keep the grass mowed and the fences repaired. I’m not sure what the upkeep is, other than what you’d do for your typical lawn.

Eventually, though, the financial devices will fail as inflation and lack of space to expand will catch up with the annuity nature of the cemetery itself. So taxpayers will eventually take over the ancient ritual of warehousing in the dirt boxes of our dead relatives. 

We have a space for living bodies problem and a space for dead bodies problem.

Instead, let’s decide if people can live here and there are these places people can live. And there are places where people can’t live. Let’s put our dead bodies in the places where we know we don’t want people to live.

Flood plains, prairies for endangered butterflies, National Monuments and parks.

We already know how to make human bodies into compost.

We should deliver our bodies to the places where we can’t build homes because we want to respect creation. And, financially speaking, we should charge the same fees and 10 to 15 percent will be set aside as an annuity to fund protecting the environment. 

Imagine visiting Aunt Claire near the Ape Caves under St. Helens or in the Hoh Rain Forest. 

3. Truth

Salmon already do it. 

They end their lives and feed the animals that will feed their offspring. 

Salmon know it is true.

The Olympia Standard: Crisis at Timberland

This week, we bring you two interviews. The first with two trustees of the Timberland Regional Library and the president of the Timberland union. We discuss the financial crisis the district found its way into earlier this year and how the district can get out.

Background:
Regional library cuts 25% of staff in South Sound layoffs. Here’s what to know

Gloves off baby!’: Messages between two top TRL administrators stoke public outrage

The Deep History and Structural Mismatch of Timberland Regional Library

The Timberland Regional Library doesn’t face a stand-off, it faces some sort of evolution