When I die

When I die

do not bury me preserved,

pickled in a box in the cemetery.

Scatter me over the earth,

let what was once my mouth fill

with the silty clay loam that breeds life,

fingers reach out as roots, searching

unseen, a way

to promote growth.

Let the dirt mound between my toes,

my uncried tears wet the soil,

my absent womb once again nourish vitality,

my lungs breathe sentience into

a substance already teeming with miniscule beings.

Let me regrow as grass, or corn,

or a wildflower,

new face seeking the sun

somehow faintly remembering doing the same

in another life.

Yes, do not keep me from the dust

from whence I came,

let it absorb me,

and I shall become

Mother Nature herself.

Wildflowers growing along a Nebraska field in July 2016

Julie “Soaring Eagle” Paschold (02–16–2019)