Theories of Time and Space
By Natasha Trethewey

You can get there from here, though
there’s no going home.

Everywhere you go will be somewhere
you’ve never been. Try this:

head south on Mississippi 49, one—
by—one mile markers ticking off

another minute of your life. Follow this
to its natural conclusion—dead end

at the coast, the pier at Gulfport where
riggings of shrimp boats are loose stitches

in a sky threatening rain. Cross over
the man-made beach, 26 miles of sand

dumped on a mangrove swamp—buried
terrain of the past. Bring only

what you must carry—tome of memory
its random blank pages. On the dock

where you board the boat for Ship Island,
someone will take your picture:

the photograph—who you were—
will be waiting when you return

I’ve never been further north on U.S. Highway 49 than Jackson, Mississippi, but I have driven the stretch from Jackson to its beginning in Gulfport, Mississippi, too many times to count.  North of Jackson at the junction of US 49 and U.S. Route 61, was where blues singer Robert Johnson is said to have sold his soul to the Devil.  But it is Gulfport that I am more familiar with because it used to be a short drive down to the beach when I wanted to get away from the stresses of graduate school. I’ve walked those man-made beaches and taken the boat out to Ship Island to see Fort Massachusetts.  If you are ever in Gulfport, or on the Mississippi Gulf Coast for that matter, you’ll probably be there for the casinos, but you really should go out to Ship Island and take a picnic lunch, explore the fort, and lounge on the beach on the south side of the island.  

The first time I went to Ship Island, I remember standing on top of Fort Massachusetts and feeling history come alive.  Having the only deep-water harbor between Mobile Bay and the Mississippi River, the island served as a vital anchorage for ships bearing explorers, colonists, sailors, soldiers, defenders and invaders. The French, Spanish, British, Confederate and Union flags have all flown over Ship Island.  French explorer Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville charted Ship Island on 10 February 1699, which he used as a base of operations in discovering the mouth of the Mississippi River. The island served as a point of immigration to French colonies in the New World.

In the War of 1812, Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane anchored between Ship Island and Cat Island with a fleet of fifty British warships and 7,500 soldiers in preparations for the Battle of New Orleans and the island was used as a launching point for British forces.  I remember standing on top of Fort Massachusetts and it was almost like I could see the fifty British warships as they prepared to attack New Orleans nearly 200 years before.  It was one of those magical moments historians sometimes have.  We are standing in a historical place and suddenly we are transported back to a significant moment.  The present world disappears and the world of the past emerges before your eyes.

“Everywhere you go will be somewhere you’ve never been.”  So if you ever find yourself in Jackson, Mississippi, try heading down U.S Highway 49 through Hattiesburg and past the beautiful campus of the University of Southern Mississippi down to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, hop on the boat out to Ship Island and let another world take you over. 

Rome at the Pyramid of Cestius Near the Graves of Shelley and Keats (1887)
By Thomas Hardy

Who, then, was Cestius,
And what is he to me? –
Amid thick thoughts and memories multitudinous
One thought alone brings he.

I can recall no word
Of anything he did;
For me he is a man who died and was interred
To leave a pyramid

Whose purpose was exprest
Not with its first design,
Nor till, far down in Time, beside it found their rest
Two countrymen of mine.

Cestius in life, maybe,
Slew, breathed out threatening;
I know not. This I know: in death all silently
He does a kindlier thing,

In beckoning pilgrim feet
With marble finger high
To where, by shadowy wall and history-haunted street,
Those matchless singers lie . . .

–Say, then, he lived and died
That stones which bear his name
Should mark, through Time, where two immortal Shades abide;
It is an ample fame.

The Protestant Cemetery of Rome, now officially called the Cimitero acattolico (“Non-Catholic Cemetery”) and often referred to as the Cimitero degli Inglesi (“Englishmen’s Cemetery”), is located near Porta San Paolo alongside the Pyramid of Cestius, a small-scale Egyptian-style pyramid built in 30 BC as a tomb and later incorporated into the section of the Aurelian Walls that borders the cemetery. The presence of Mediterranean cypress, pomegranate, and other trees, and a grassy meadow suggests the more naturalistic landscape style of northern Europe, where cemeteries sometimes incorporate grass and other greenery. As the official name indicates, it is the final resting place of non-Catholics including but not exclusive to Protestants or British and Americans. It contains the graves of many Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims and other non-Christians. It is one of the oldest burial grounds in continuous use in Europe, having started to be used around 1716.

The Cimitero Acattolico di Roma contains possibly the highest density of famous and important graves anywhere in the world. It is the final resting-place of the poets Shelley and Keats, of many painters, sculptors and authors, a number of scholars, several diplomats, Goethe’s only son, and Antonio Gramsci, a founding father of European Communism, to name only a few.

When you visit this cemetery in Rome, one of the first sites you see is the Pyramid of Cestius. I have to admit, the Protestant cemeteries in Rome and Florence were two of the highlights of my research trip to Italy several years ago. Not only are cemeteries a great source of research, but also the gravestones are often more than just markings for the dead, but works of art. One of those pieces of art is the Angel of Grief, an 1894 sculpture by William Wetmore Story which serves as the grave stone of the artist and his wife Emelyn Story. The grave is now used to describe multiple grave stones throughout the world erected in the style of the Story stone.

If you are ever in Rome, you really should visit the Cimitero Acattolico di Roma.