Refusal of the Four Elements to Accept Our Dead

Refusal of the Four Elements to Accept Our Dead

One day the earth suddenly refused
To accept any more of our dead

Undertakers attacked the ground with jackhammers
But even if they managed to dig a grave
The earth coughed the coffin back up

On the coast they tried sea burials
But the sea also refused them
No weight could make the coffins sink
They tried chaining them down
To rings screwed into the rocky seabed 
But the links groaned and broke
And the coffins floated back up
To drift aimlessly like flotillas 
Whose crews were butchered by pirates

It was thought Well of course cremation
But the bodies wouldn’t burn
Though it would be more accurate to say that
Fire didn’t want them either 
The flames just licked at them a little
Like a dog too sick to eat

Nor did the bodies rot
As if the air had lost interest
In doing commerce with the flesh
This was a blessing
They didn’t even need embalming
But it confirmed that all four elements
Had decided to no longer accept our dead

There was no choice but to set coffins on biers
Not only in cemeteries but in parks
Walking through the woods with friends
One might stumble upon one standing there
Hushing all talk and laughter

Though more and more families decided
They wanted to keep their dead nearer
And so set the biers up in their back yards
Between the barbecue grill 
And the badminton net

And because the bodies were incorruptible
Some decided against coffins
And instead placed them in glass sarcophagi 
Where they lay regally
Their lifelike hands clasped
Like those waxen saints in cathedrals 
Who smile softly in snow drifts of prayer petitions 

And children who might never have really believed
The great-grandparents they were shown
In albums spread across their grandparents’ laps
Had actually ever existed 
Approached them slowly now
With the high soundless steps of deer 
As if they were only sleeping
As if they might suddenly
Open their eyes