It’s Hard Digging in Winter
April 21 2008


It’s hard digging in winter,
especially when the wind scours the surface bare.
Where the frost penetrates deeper,
and it’s slow going
the full 6 feet.
Or frozen bodies
in anonymous black shrouds,
stacked like seasoned wood, above ground,
waiting for spring.

Down south, it’s different.
In a paupers’ plot in New Orleans
you hit water at 2 feet
— grave-diggers in gumboots,
sloshing around
knee-deep.
So the dead are buried
much closer to the rest of us.
And like small boats
caskets are lowered into water,
their passengers gently rocked
into eternal sleep.
I can just picture it
— eyes closed, arms crossed
and a ghostly smile,
as the recently departed
go sailing-off.

I want to end like this
— in fertile soil close to the sun,
instead of lifeless clay
6 feet under.
Where a tree may grow before my gravestone
feeding on decomposing flesh.
Or scavengers will come, and dig me up,
howling in the dead of night,
releasing me
from rest.

To some, an indignity to a human corpse;
but to me, my version of the afterlife.
Close enough to the surface
that when it thaws
the hot spring sun will warm my pile of bones.
Or in a shallow grave
in a pine box,
rocking me gently home.