Planetary Signatures

7/17/21: 

Pluto asks the Sun,
what kind of funeral 
he wants, because, we all die,
 
eventually.  And he sees it
as his job, to remind everyone
not to be childish.

…The Sun Replies…

"No need to bury me.
Leave me out, on the stone.

Let me be torn
apart, by beasts.

It is a natural thing
to do.  I have carried

 my share of dead bodies,
over the river, and

through the woods,
where the path turns

into Nothing, 
and the leaves darken

the Light.  At night,
you hear the coyotes,

feasting.  The body
returns to the Earth

without your help.
It does not need you 

to bury it, like gold. You 
 do not need to commemorate  

yourself, to die well.
The last breath is a portal

all its own.  The body
starts to putrefy, rigid 
 
within the hour.  You are
not that which your rememberers

 bury.  As a child, in the Summer, 
 I would collect the animal bones, 

 and carry them out, to the Sun.  
Sometimes I would sink skulls, 

in the wombs of my homeland, 
because I'd have liked to rest

 there, in the beds below sweet 
water, if I'd been eaten.

Skeletons are beautiful.
They are maps. 
 
An animal's horns will tell you
   how he lived his life. 
 
You can see what seasons
  he was full, or depleted. 
 
 You can see his growth, 
 like tree rings.  Skeletons 

   do not need words. 
  Do not bury me.

I need no last rites.  I am
as sacred now, as the day

I am left, on the rocks.
Let me be picked apart,

scattered, and burned,
or bleached, by a new

Sun.  Let coyotes howl, 
at my feast.”