Member-only story
gravestone on freshly
mounded soil — rocky
brown ground covers
silence — chisels worked
to engrave a name — one
who toiled and laughed
and knew… don’t dig so
deep down for me: my
souvenirs of life will be
freely scattered sky
glittering daily
in a trillion photons
On Saturday, I attended a burial and, in the company of loved ones, participated in the digging and refilling of a grave on sacred ground.
Family members placed mementos on the surface after men raked and leveled the mounded dirt. Snow globes and silk flowers in vases. Figurines and treasured nicknacks that had been part of her daily scene for decades. Tears and prayers and wishes tendered for the afterlife. The grave lay east to west, flanked in all directions by ancestors who made their ownward journeys, both all-too recently and in the distant past.
After the ceremony, my teenage daughter asked me if that is how I’d want to be buried. I…
