"The Earth Pays Back Heretical Lives in Her Mysterious Drawers"

I suppose the cryptic message on this sign in one of the St. Louis Cemeteries in New Orleans must be referring to the crypts -- the drawers in the mausoleums themselves. This cemetery was crumbling in more places than those that were being well maintained. Perhaps the writer was opining on the notion of the grave sites themselves and their departed occupants going the route of all things, ashes and dust. An incisive observation from someone with shaky handwriting.

It's taken almost exactly a year to finally decipher the handwriting (the "pays back" being the hardest part on which to reach an inconclusive conclusion). The sign rests upon the brick base of a defunct mausoleum that either fell down of its own accord or was perhaps pilfered at some point. The occupant having gone who knows where, though in New Orleans, a town with a neighborhood known as Elsyian fields, who's to say the weary bones didn't return to his or her old "haunts."