There’s a tiny cemetery underneath the natural garnet dome of our Hallowed Ground ring. Laurel branches adorn its shoulders, symbolizing victory, eternity, and immortality.
Throwback to last year when I decorated our lawn for Halloween. I added a salt circle around one of the graves. Well, actually it’s baking soda, my parents thought salt would kill the grass. Turns out so does baking soda.
A Serbian war cemetery on the island of Corfu, Greece (fromthe Serbian Great War Archives). Serbian refugees made it to Corfu and nearby island Vido after the army’s retreat through Albania, but sadly many of those who survived the journey would later die from exhaustion, hunger, and disease as a result of their perilous journey. Given the island’s rocky terrain, there was not a lot of room to bury the dead as in the picture above. To prevent the spread of disease, both refugees and medical staff alike opted to “bury” roughly 5,000 of the dead beneath in the ocean.
Poet Milutin Bojić wrote a poem called Ode to the Blue Sea Tomb in honor of the dead:
Hail to you, imperial galleys! Restrain your mighty rudders! Stroke your oars silently! I’m proudly officiating a sublime Requiem in the chill of the night Upon these sacred waters. Here at the bottom, where seashells tire in sleep And upon the dead algae peat falls, Stretch the graves of the brave, couched brother beside brother, Prometheuses of Hope, Apostles of Pain.
Don’t you feel the wafting sea, That it may not trouble their holy repose? From the deep abyss peaceful slumber ebbs, And in tiring flight the moonlight slowly passes.
This is a mysterious temple and a sad graveyard With decaying carcasses, unfathomably real. Silent like the night on the tip of the Ionian Sea Dark as a conscience, cold and despairing.
Don’t you feel from your most depressing moods That piety grows over this benediction And the air fills with curious gentleness? That great soul of the fallen roams Hail to you, imperial galleys! Upon this tomb my dear kindred ones Veil the trumpets in mourning black. Let your sentry, upright, chant the holy dirge Here, where waves come to an embrace!
For the centuries will pass as the white foam vanishes upon the sea without a trace, And a new and great age will come in its place, To create a splendid home upon this grave.
But these waters, in which was shrouded the terrible mystery of the Epic, these waters will be a cradle in Time of legends revealed, Where the soul will seek out its Destiny.
Buried are here once ancient garlands And the passing joy of more than one generation, That’s why this cemetery lies in the shadow of waves Between the bosom of the sea and the vault celestial.
Hail to you, imperial galleys! Extinguish the torches, Let the oars come to a blustering rest, And when the Requiem prayers are said, steal away into the dark night inaudibly and with reverential awe. I wish for the eternal silence to rule and for the glorious dead to hear the noise of Battles, And rejoice in our cries of victory, as we cast ourselves beneath the wings of Glory upon the fields vermillion with blood.
For, there far away, battles sway With the same blood that emanates from this resting-place: Here above the eye of the resting lords, There before the son’s history is made.
That’s why I seek peace, to officiate a Requiem without words, without tears and quiet sighs, Mingle with the odor of powder, the perfume of incense As we hear resound the far noise of the cannon.
Hail to you, imperial galleys! In the name of a conscientious fast Glide lightly upon these sacred waters. A Requiem I’m officiating, one that heavens have yet to see upon these sacred waters!
