Nameless

Southeast of Marfa towards the border of Mexico there is a little ghost town called Shafter. If you leave the highway and follow a dirt road to a tiny plateau you will find an old Mexican cemetery full of ‚wolf graves’. They are very shallow because the ground is so rocky that people can’t dig deep.

So they had to pile up stones to cover the bodies of the dead. Most of the graves have a white cross on top without a name on it. They are quite old and have been partly destroyed by the wind and by the ravages of time.

Right next to this cemetery there is another one. Nicely apportioned in quarters with a fence around it so that nobody can step on the graves. A rock plate tells me who has been buried here. There are flowers on the graves, names, sometimes even pictures. This is the cemetery of the Angloamericans. Even death does not overcome difference.

When things are not given a name they won’t come into existence because they will not become part of our language and communication. When humans are not given a name they won’t stay in existence because they will not remain part of our memories and communication.