GULLY OF FORGOTTEN GRAVESTONES

By Shane Camoin


There’s a gully behind the playground and picnic pavilion in Lindsey Gardens where I often come to be alone among the broken gravestones that litter the tall grass and weeds like discarded bodies. They were bulldozed down here when the land above was cleared for the new fire station. I assume the deceased were moved to another part of the cemetery and given new gravestones. A flimsy chain-link fence is all that separates Lindsey Gardens from the Salt Lake City Cemetery, the largest cemetery in the state. The inventor of the electric traffic light is buried in there. This gully of forgotten gravestones is a meditative place. Hidden from the world, the unwanted leftovers of the dead mingle with the echoes of children’s laughter.


Shane Camoin was born in Los Angeles and raised in Salt Lake City. Along with winning awards for writing and teaching, Camoin has lectured on the concept of identity at symposiums and conferences throughout Asia, Europe and North America. His novel won first place in the 2018 Utah Original Writing Competition.