reminder that this blog, while not politically focused, supports BLM. bootlickers and racists aren’t welcome here, and never will be.
(by Andrew Meehan)| Utah, US
bodies should never ever hurt when i’m trying to sleep. like girl literally just turn off. that’s enough
(by danielkordan)| Kyushu, Japan
"Greetings to the Universe in 55 Different Languages", a poem compiled out of messages from the Voyager spacecraft
“When my nineteen-year-old son turns on the kitchen tap and leans down over the sink and tilts his head sideways to drink directly from the stream of cool water, I think of my older brother, now almost ten years gone, who used to do the same thing at that age; And when he lifts his head back up and, satisfied, wipes the water dripping from his cheek with his shirtsleeve, it’s the same casual gesture my brother used to make; and I don’t tell him to use a glass, the way our father told my brother, because I like remembering my brother when he was young, decades before anything went wrong, and I like the way my son becomes a little more my brother for a moment through this small habit born of a simple need, which, natural and unprompted, ties them together across the bounds of death, and across time … as if the clear stream flowed between two worlds and entered this one through the kitchen faucet, my son and brother drinking the same water.”
— A Drink of Water BY JEFFREY HARRISON
glory be to the topsoil. to the worms. to the private church of mushrooms. what makes for a better angel than the quiet promise of decomposition - that thankless, endless task. returning to the earth: this is a final prayer.
you said to me - we understand so much of history through the lens of how each society handled death. i have been thinking about the funeral industry. about embalming. how the devil is supposed to be almost-human, charming. i was raised on teflon pans. the poison in my blood came from good intentions; sprinkled over pancakes and scrambled eggs. will those particles go, too, when i go?
i keep thinking about how many cultures personify death as being gentle. as being a friend. as being kind-of-beautiful. an outstretched hand. oh, we scowl so much at carrion birds; but they make their nests by the worship of a carcass. something about that feels beautiful to me.
i am often scared. i understand why some people seek immortality, even if it's not something i desire. i spend a lot of time worrying about coffins. i spend a lot of time thinking about how if they dug me up, my bones would tell very little about my soft spots. so many of my friends say - i just want to be a tree. i want to find a quiet space and go home. the other day, we got the bill from the funeral home, and i just stood there, staring. this is death?
you said: it's learning backwards. from how a society approaches death, we might learn how they celebrate life. i worry about what that means, sometimes. about what others will think about us. divorced from our contexts, maybe alien archivists will have a fondness for our tendency to call death sleep. maybe they will write essays titled towards the light: an analysis on how some sects of humanity worshipped solely facing east.
oh, there's so much about my life that won't survive. especially these days. there's so little that lasts in-the-same-shape. oh, if the universe is kind - i want them to know that we loved moss. that we loved lichen. that even decay could be beautiful for us; the little warm space of mulch. how i will go home, one day, in the body of a bird. in a worm. in a leaf.
how when we lay a body in the ground, we say: be at peace.
oh, to go to sleep so gracefully. when i go i want to leave no mark. i want the dirt to take me. // r.i.d & a.b
Two more of the geese flying along the ridge toward the lake.