Gary Fincke: Scattering

From six to ten pounds, our cremains
Will weigh, the visible fragments
White or gray, the largest pieces
Ground to sand-size for discretion
And the ease of our scattering.

Not comforting, this summary,
But better, pre-need, than the one
Describing decomposition
By traditional burial.

Better yet, post-burning options
Carry romance for the living–
Etched keepsake urns, ash-speckled cards,
Jewelry that carries cremains
Near the wrists, the throat and the heart.

Carry ceremony, as well–
Scatterings at sea, in meadows,
Off cliffs or the small balconies
Of the deads’ high-rise apartments,

Because height, most often, is craved–
From airplanes, from helicopters
And hot-air balloons, even from
The raised barrel of a shotgun
To ensure a high arc of dust.

And lately, fireworks, with music,
Those ashes blown into rainbows
To ooohs and aaahs from the living,
Bringing to mind what’s new, the launch

Into space, the years-long orbit
Until small meteors of ash
Plummet again into burning.
And now there are those who will pay
For lift-off to the moon and Mars,

The beautiful, infinite ride
Beyond solar system borders,
Escaping, they convince themselves,
The great scenario of ash,

How the Earth, in a billion years,
Will become a planet of dust;
How, finally, it will spiral
Into the huge, expanding sun,
Which, while dying, will scatter Earth

As if it needed to render
All of our cremains to swirling
In eternal memorial,
Perfecting grief, at last, because

There’s never enough preserving,
Never enough remembering
As we fling those we love in wide,
Then wider arcs, as if distance
Can photograph the dead, create

An image we’re able to see
When we’re alone, concentrating
On some speck of sky as we breathe
The heavenly dust of the loved.

Copyright 2023 Gary Fincke. First published in Prairie Schooner/Reviving the Dead. Included in Vox Populi by permission of the author.

Gary Fincke is the recipient of many awards including the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry magazine and the Rose Lefcowitz Prize from Poet Lore.