I saw Jeff Mangum, lead singer of the now defunct band Neutral Milk Hotel, last Saturday night in Minneapolis, MN. The show was a very emotional one for me. The haunting memory of Mangum's courageously out of tune voice will not be quickly forgotten. I realized I had a couple hours to kill before my departure Sunday morning as I stumbled across Fort Snelling National Cemetery and decided to take a walk. As I zig zagged between the repetitiously similar gravestones, marking the final resting spot of thousands of anonymous comrades, I couldn't help but tie a correlation to some of Mangum's lyrics to what some of the courageous men and women, laying frozen, under six feet of Minnesota soil, once felt.

I leave you with the lyrics to Neutral Milk Hotel's song "Holland, 1945".

The only girl I've ever loved Was born with roses in her eyes But then they buried her alive One evening, 1945 With just her sister at her side And only weeks before the guns All came and rained on everyone Now she's a little boy in Spain Playing pianos filled with flames On empty rings around the sun All sing to say my dream has come

But now we must pick up every piece Of the life we used to love Just to keep ourselves At least enough to carry on

And now we ride the circus wheel With your dark brother wrapped in white Says it was good to be alive But now he rides a comet's flame And won't be coming back again The Earth looks better from a star That's right above from where you are He didn't mean to make you cry With sparks that ring and bullets fly On empty rings around your heart The world just screams and falls apart

But now we must pick up every piece Of the life we used to love Just to keep ourselves At least enough to carry on

And here's where your mother sleeps And here is the room where your brothers were born Indentions in the sheets Where their bodies once moved but don't move anymore And it's so sad to see the world agree That they'd rather see their faces fill with flies All when I'd want to keep white roses in their eyes