When You Don’t Bury

TO THE AIR

Not burial at all

but instead a great freeing,

flesh handed over to the

birds and elements,

dead lives widely scattered

and confined to no single ground.

Or the hunger of fire,

earth gods dusted with ashes

and sky gods smudged with our smoke,

the wide circle covered

and all of us everywhere.

–Tim Miller, Bone Antler Stone, 2018, 2024

5 thoughts on “When You Don’t Bury

    1. Jennifer Mugrage's avatar Jennifer Mugrage

      How bleak!
      I don’t wish to be flippant, but I will remember you, and so will the book enthusiasts of the Internet. And in all seriousness, though you have no children you may have friends and family who would like there to be a record of your existence.

      I once read a pamphlet by a Christian who tried to establish that only burial, and not cremation, was the “godly” way. He did it mostly by a references to the practices of the Old Testament, where a person was “laid with their fathers.” However, I tend to think that in the New Covenant, what happens to the body matters less because we know that we will be raised with Christ regardless of how we died or the condition of our bodies.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. It is bleak, I agree.

        I love when people try to prove things Biblically that are strictly cultural. I usually ask them when they are taking a second wife and leave it at that.
        I don’t think our old body matters at all, because we will be getting new bodies at Resurrection, no matter when you believe that is.

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