Toi Derricotte: Not Forgotten
I love the way the black ants use their dead.
They carry them off like warriors on their steel
backs.
Tony Gloeggler: Anyway
After we dropped dirt
on my father’s coffin
the long line of cars
drove back to the house.
Helene Johnson: Invocation
Let me be buried in the rainIn a deep, dripping wood,Under the warm wet breast of EarthWhere once a gnarled tree stood.And paint a picture on my tombWith dirt and … Continue reading
Arlene Weiner: Pinky
Last week I took a shovel from a prepared heap,
scooped earth easily, turned, threw it
onto your coffin, plain pine.
Bruce Lowry: Just Long Enough
My desire is only this—to die someplace the earth made beautiful all on its own, the way a first-grader makes the morning glory out of construction paper and Elmer’s glue, … Continue reading
Jim Daniels: My Security Question
The closet in her room
remains as she left it
clothes losing their dark
interest. Ghosts in the dust.
Video: Tengri
According to the ancient religion of Tengrism, at death, the wind spirit ushers one’s soul back to the sky god Tengri in an inevitable return to nature. In this short film, the Mongolian-born, Montreal-based filmmaker Alisi Telengut uses hand-painted animation to illustrate the Mongolian postmortem ceremony known as wind burial.
Doug Anderson: The Gravestone and the Continuing Self
When I was in my twenties I thought old age was an island only accessible by a bridge I’d never cross. But I’ve crossed it, and at seventy-eight the subject … Continue reading
Barbara Huntington: What to Do with Nine Twelfths
At the time it seemed a good idea
Dividing his ashes
Stephen Dobyns: Laugh
What he wished was to have his ashes flushed
down the ladies’ room toilet of Syracuse City Hall,
which would so clog the pipes that the resulting
blast of glutinous broth would douse the place clean
Lynn Freehill-Maye, Phillip Pantuso: Return to Nature
Green burials go beyond not polluting or wasting. It’s about people needing and caring for land, conducting life-affirming activities there—including death.
Doug Anderson: Memphis, 1970
Came home from that war trailing death like ground fog. Wandered summers, did trim carpentry in Texas, bartending, landed in Memphis working for a marble mill where with old Thomas … Continue reading
