That is a lot of repetition of “it.” In’t, in’t, it. The assonance is really quite extraordinary, as well. It reminds me of this exercise that my grad school advisor used to do with students. He’d have everyone read their text with the vowels only. It made everyone sound (and feel) ridiculous but occasionally, that sort of pedantic exercise yielded some interesting results. This is a line that might really deliver some juice that way.

I have trouble understanding how a person could hate puns. I mean, sure, some of them can be groan inducing and ridiculous – but on the whole, they’re harmless and encourage a nice sense of double-ness.

I wonder if that’s the issue. I mean, to enjoy a pun requires a holding of two concepts at once. In this case, it is both lying as in fibbing and lying as in reclining. You have to hold both ideas at once to find such a thing amusing. Or maybe it isn’t so much amusing as pleasurable – it rings a simultaneity bell.

But maybe that simultaneity chime sounds more like a school bell to those who do not enjoy a pun.
I’m curious.

Is this Hamlet’s way of making conversation? Hey man – who’re you digging the grave for? Not, like, “Hi – you’re a gravedigger, what’s that like?”
I don’t know. It’s a funny question to ask. I’d wager most gravediggers don’t have a sense of who they’re digging graves for. I saw the guys digging my grandmother’s grave and I would bet a lot of money on them not having the slightest idea of who they were digging it for. I would bet that they could tell me its exact location and how deep they were meant to dig it for the box of ashes – but if they even knew her name I would be surprised. More like something like Position Q2 on the Northeast quadrant. That’s more likely.

Granted, my grandmother was buried, alongside my grandfather, in one of the biggest cemeteries in the country but still…I would never assume a gravedigger had knowledge of his grave’s future resident. And I wouldn’t start a conversation there. However – it’s good that Hamlet does, as it allows for some fun wordplay in the midst of a pretty dark tragedy.

At Christmas dinner, everyone was talking, with the exception of this one couple. And my dad, who had also not been talking much, reached out to them, to ask them a question. It wasn’t that he needed to know the answer to that question – it was a sort of intentionality of inclusion. It was looking around and seeing who is left out and then making space for them to feel welcomed. The question is an announcement of intention like this. I will speak to this fellow and redirect the conversation which has been headed in many other directions. It is interesting because I don’t tend to think of my dad as being a masterful conversationalist but we all have our little geniuses.

Is the assurance about being turned into parchment? That we will go on after our slaughter if we can be turned into paper? Or turned into art? Or turned into writing? I think I may be a sheep or calf in this arena. I do find assurance in knowing that some piece of me will live on after me. That I leave behind me a large body of work. Even if no one ever reads it or finds it or enjoys it – I am assured somehow that I labored for something that has meaning to me if no one else. If that makes me a sheep, I’m okay with it.

Of the many things I am grateful for, in living in the time that I do, the ready availability of paper is not one that occurs to me as often as it should. I mean, I go through a LOT of paper and a lot of that paper is essentially wasted. Part of my writing practice is to just vomit ink on the page for a bit before settling in to write the thing I came for. Part of the reason I am able to achieve a certain amount of prolific-ness (prolifity?) is that I am able to be “wasteful” with paper. If I had to be sure each word I wrote was worth it, there would be a considerable chill on my creativity. I notice it even if I’m running low on paper in a temporary way. If I had to write on parchment, I might never finish anything.

It is funny that our stuff lasts longer than we do. Our paperwork, our trash, our bills and our un-done to do lists will all be left behind.

I suppose some things pass from generation to generation – things like furniture or pictures – but very little lasts more than a few generations.

The original sense of conveyance was a document that transferred ownership from one person to another. It is interesting that language has shifted the sense from the document to the movement.
Now a conveyance suggests some transportation. Something as still and inert as a piece of paper can become a moving object.

Also – it is quite extraordinary how many pieces of paper, how many documents a person can acquire in his or her life. If you had to take them with you to the grave, there would be no room for you in it.

Sound, my friends. This passage is a festival of sound. After a world of fine, we have gone to a repetition of vouch, which links quite nicely in sound to purchases.
The rhythm of length and breadth – pairs nicely with a pair of indentures.

This passage isn’t here for meaning, I don’t think – it’s almost a song in response to the gravediggers song. It’s an answer song from Hamlet.

That is a whole lot of fine right there. That is FOUR repetitions of one word within one sentence. That is super much fun to say, too. This line is often cut due to its point being essentially made in previous lines – but this fine repetition is linguistically fun and fine, fine, fine, fine.