There is a humbleness in burial.
In sinking to battered knees,
in clasping shaking hands and
in the lowering, the covering
of the dead. In the digging,
the return to the earth and
to dust.
The only things
covered are the holiest and
the most sinful. Those most
worthy of the light, and
those most deserving of
darkness. They bury just
the same.
There is dirt under
my nails from these burials.
Of family, of pets, of memory.
Of pieces of myself, hacked and
sawed and torn and sliced and
gangrened off in the hopes
of healing.
For there is humbleness in
burial, there is holiness and
heaviness, and there is
healing. In the roses lain
on caskets, in the crunch of
dirt, in filthy nails, there
is peace.
