Of the Cemetary: inescapable border[s]?

Recently, I had the honor of driving past a cemetary, but this particular encasement of the dead was different. How so? This particular cemetary was surrounded by a fence, or what I will call human-wire.

The question in my mind persisted: Why would anyone "fence" in/out the dead? I thought, well, of course--it is because of grave robbers, or because it was private property--and still, this particular inquest continued to work on my mind. I immediately recalled the need for private/public space distinction in the work of Hannah Arendt as well as the cosmopolitanism of the public sphere regarding "freedom" within the work of Jürgen Habermas. Still, why all the investment toward inclusion and exclusion? Essentially, what is the position of the cemetary?

The cemetary has often reflected a given society's need toward closure with respect to the living more than the dead. After all, one could argue that the dead no longer "tell tales," but in their silence, and in their own way--they signify. Can a cemetary as a miniature of that community's geopolitical space encase more than the corpus of the dead? That is, can it offer the living present-tense cognition?

In literature we are reminded of the locus of the cemetary, or meeting place of the dead. I am here referencing the respective position[s] and space[s] of the Hebrew Sheol, the Old Norse Valhöll, the Greek Hades, the Christian's Hell and so on. These encasements of the fallen, or translations from life toward death act as a reminder; a faithful (re)telling of a life lived; an awareness toward missed opportunity to do in the now, what cannot be done in the then; and, of course--an escape from and toward a new established order of space and behavior and responsibility.

Am I saying that in Hell there exists responsibility, or in Valhalla, or in Sheol there exists a measure of social aquisition and prosperous utility? At the risk of sounding like Swedenborg--I do apologize. Still, it is worth an examination, or some level of investiture.

In short, the next time you pass a cemetary note whether an additional encasement surrounds the property, the space, the human gathering grounds of the fallen, the loved, and others within the interstitial surroundings of the living and the unborn.