Let the Memorial Hill Remember
Let the Memorial Hill Remember - meaning Summary
Delegating Memory to Things
The speaker relinquishes personal remembrance and asks monuments, rituals, named places, religious objects, animals and even refuse to carry memory of the dead. Sacred symbols and ordinary, even disgraceful, elements are enlisted alike to preserve what the speaker wants to forget. The poem contrasts public commemoration with visceral physical processes, suggesting that dispersing memory across objects and creatures allows the speaker release and quiet rest.
Read Complete AnalysesLet the memorial hill remember instead of me, that's what it's here for. Let the par in-memory-of remember, let the street that's-named-for remember, let the well-known building remember, let the synagogue that's named after God remember let the rolling Torah scroll remember, let the prayer for the memory of the dead remember. Let the flags remember those multicolored shrouds of history: the bodies they wrapped have long since turned to dust. Let the dust remember. Let the dung remember at the gate. Let the afterbirth remember. Let the beasts of the field and birds of the heavens eat and remember. Let all of them remember so that I can rest.
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