Saturday, March 3, 2012

Living Will


("Ceremony Ashes" *from the "Impressions in Barbados" series,Walter Smith)

I don’t want to be buried,
-when I die-
My body incarcerated,
smelling putrid, like old
milk having solidified.
Sharing elbow room where
The earth worm has burrowed.
This does not appeal to me
once my life has ended.

Rather, bake me into ashes,
pepper me in the sea-
travel me free, like a careless
fish without purpose.
Send me off with your wishes-
a goodbye ceremony-
as my gritty bulk traverses
the ocean floor. This is what I’ll
wish for when my breathing ceases.

*Linking up to Poetics over at dVerse

12 comments:

  1. your wishes shine loud and clear and they sound like a beautifully peaceful way to return to the "earth."

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  2. nice...get this notarized and you should be set...smiles...interesting mark wrote on scattering his moms ashes thus...um, what if i step in you...smiles...ok a little loopy here...

    i def think this would be a nice way though...maybe as the sun sets...and a steel drum band...smiles.

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  3. Very nice..I like these lines best:

    Rather, bake me into ashes,
    pepper me in the sea-
    travel me free, like a careless
    fish without purpose.

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  4. my mother in law always says that she wants her ash to be thrown into the river that flows here...i'm not sure if it would be allowed to do this in germany but the more i think about it, the more i like the idea..the yearning for freedom in death can be felt powerfully in this..

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  5. This is exactly what I want done with my ashes, throw them into any stretch of water. I don't want my body buried in the ground and have all the bugs eat me, I want to be turned to ash and scattered into the water.
    This says how I feel, in a nutshell :)
    Well said.

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  6. 'Send me off with your wishes, a goodbye ceremony' that's all that's asked for, true enough, Caty! Nothing wrong with that. In fact it says it all very nicely! Great verse!

    Hank

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  7. I suddenly don't want to be buried!

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  9. Yes, very beautiful. It is exactly what I want (and have written in my Will).

    We scattered my mother's ashes from a whale boat at the Oregon coast in 2000. Along with those of her beloved dog, who died a year before her and she kept the ashes for us to follow her wishes. Tossed a wreath in after them. We had the memorial service in our little town a few weeks later and I had this song played over the sound system: Dante's Prayer.

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  10. This is nice--I like it and wish I had included such words with my final wishes instead of just indicating cremation.

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  11. hey you...i hope you are doing well and are able to enjoy the transition to spring a bit...

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  12. smiles...thanks for dropping in yesterday...
    how have you been?

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