As houses and churches shifted toward sameness over the last century, our graves did too.
Before mass production uglified the headstones the graveyards looked like town parks where tall, short, thin, squat amblers had just stopped where they stood, and there they stand. Each one a unique individual of unique sizes, shapes and colors. You feel invited to stroll among them and converse, maybe with a parasol and a top hat on, like in an impressionist painting.
Now, though, we make graveyards of row upon row of square, shiny grey boxes which grid the grass into suburbs for the laid dead. No reason to stroll. You see everything interesting from your car window as you pass.
So you go from your house, which is some shade of beige or grey, to your grave, marked with a monument that’s any shape of square you’d like.