Dood Abides

In Amsterdam, the the Poule des doods (Pool of Death) is “a pool of poets who write and read a poem for the people who have no mourners at their funeral”. What a noble endeavour. The noblest. At the Mefi thread where I learned of the practice, someone objected that “it tells a lie about the dead person, ie that somebody cared”. They might want to avoid war memorials and reading Wilfred Owen, I said. If writing a poem tells a lie, then so does burial. Let’s leave their bodies behind a bush for the buzzards. Doing something for another, even a stranger, whether it’s helping an old lady across the street or writing a poem for her unattended funeral, is an act of care. Which makes it no lie that somebody cared. “Well,” they replied, “I hope nobody ever has to pretend that about you.” That prompted a serious question: why would you hope that? My answer would be that this commenter hopes that I’m experiencing, while I’m still alive, enough connections with other living humans that they’ll…