Green Burial (a poem)
By Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
Do not embalm me.
Leave me unclothed.
Vegetal soil will be
my dress, the resolute
night my swanky coat.
A simple coffin please:
pine, softened
and carved
by hearty rains.
Bury me in a natural
setting beneath
a hickory, maple,
or oak. No headstone
looming like a garret
or my name hollowed
in petrified stone.
No fumbling eulogy
to blemish the sanguine
air. No effusive tears
on my behalf.
Drape the woods
with a flute’s voice.
A mockingbird’s reply
will tunnel through
a tangle of vines.
Lay a colony of clover.
Plant saplings near
the mound. The ground
will teem with sweet-
showered cypress,
holly, and willow green.
In time out of loosened
loam, I’ll sprout
my fledgling limbs.
Grant me these tidal
sails. Let them billow
in emerald winds.