Departure Melodious Dos

Departure Melodious Dos

Funerals
are for
the living, even
those first ones where

we
were thrown
naked into a
shallow pit and olive

branches
sufficed for
mantle. I favor
cremation and must have

been
embraced by
furious flames many
times in Viking craft and

Buddhist
bundles, giving
me the appetite
for swallowing fire. Although

there
was something
to be said
for the Apache graveyards,

perching
us high
overhead in loving
trees as fodder for

magpies
and ravens,
rejecting the dirt;
sustenance for worms and

rodents.
For many
of us our
departed shell of flesh,

bone
and carbon
returns to its
mother earth
to be wept over and

be
picked over
by scavengers of
all kinds, part of

the
great rhythm,
the natural conclusion--
first the feeder then

the
food, as
the cycle continues;
absolute proof for me

that
no one
will ever find
the bones or body

of
cousin Sasquatch.

Glenn Buttkus October 2010

Listed as #74 over at Magpie Tales 34