An easement


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.



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