is, in legal terms, the right to use
or enter onto the real property of another
without making any claim to possess it.
In the case of an easement for burial,
it means the one who purchases a burial plot
acquires exclusive and permanent rights
of use, but not direct ownership— which
makes sense when you consider how when you go,
there's nothing you can take with you, though
your bones and any sediment remaining after
the worms have had their fill might be thought
to reside in the soil underneath the marker
or headstone. When you're dead, it won't
matter if the family who owns the neighboring
plot puts up a screen of trees; you couldn't
complain that they block your view of mountains
or the sea, or the east side of the city. Nor
would it matter if goats strayed onto the green
to nibble at weeds and flower offerings. Ease,
meaning that undisturbed state of the body;
tranquility, comfort, derived from the Latin
adiacens, lying at or near: why the living
still want to make arrangements to lie next to or
with each other, in that unparceled dark.