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.ā