Day Four - Part One

Two pieces for today, with very little in common...



Title: the tree we have been turning beneath

This line comes from my poem, Second Burial, which draws on the old burial traditions of the native peoples from Costa Rica. Their practice was to dowse the body in mangrove pulp and juice to quicken the decay process, bury the body once, wait until only the bones were left, dig up the bones and arrange them into a small stack before burying them in the ground a second and last time.

After my travels to Costa Rica and after I'd had a chance to think more on this curious process, it occurred to me that second burials are often what we do with people we love, living or dead. The grief of letting someone go comes in stages.

For me, I wanted to use the metaphor to speak about a particular relationship that I seemed to keep digging up and burying again and again.

***

Second Burial

Under the mangrove tree,
I find a place and bury you.

In a dream, roots wrap
around you, which is us,
which is me, which is you.

And when the juice of the mangrove
and the mash of the pulp
have pulled the soft tissue away,
I will go to the tree
we have been turning beneath,

unearth the remains,
unbury you, which is us,
which is me, which is you,

I will gather the bones we have left,
and tie them tenderly
into the shape of a gift,

give them back to the black soil
and watch as this last offering of us
is again returned to the thousand pieces
from which we came.