| ELEMEN-TARRY I: BY SEA If perchance, I die at sea, Just toss me naked overboard. Let no casing hinder me or slow me to my just reward. Perhaps some stones tied �round my waist To hold me down there in the deep; So the sea can soon make haste and decompose me while I sleep. Come sea creatures�nibble me! Come salt water; leach my bones. Dissolve me into deep blue sea till nothing's left except those stones. For whose to say that after death, When flesh has taken its last breath, That spirit isn't freed at last To element in which it's cast? And, oh, what joy - if this were true - To be an Ocean deep and blue, Gently rocking to and fro, Creating tide and undertow. A liquid home to give to all, Aquatic creatures, great and small. No more to feel that mortal strife; Just helping Nature bring forth life. II: BY FIRE If I should die in poverty, I wouldn't mind to leave by fire. Quick element to set me free yet, modern ways aren't my desire. Enclose me not in fiery stove to have my ash scraped in an urn. Take me to high mountain-grove, and on great bonfire let me burn. And oh what joy, if this were so, as cloud of vapor rising high, to leave all burdens down below till I'm absorbed into the sky. For who's to say when flesh is gone that spirit does not tarry on; yet to live and grow and feed on element to which it's freed? Released by fire, into the air with no worldly weight to bear. Surpassing all past dreams to fly, now that I've become the sky. Free to use sun, wind and rain, with passion such, I must restrain. Midwife to the Sea and Earth As She continues giving birth. White Shaman � 2004 |