The Earth Owns My Body

I thought I'd share with you a poem that I wrote. Here's the idea behind it.

My body is literally made from and sustained by the Earth. Now a part of me, the atoms that make up my body once belonged to countless other living and non-living things. The Earth owns my body. I'm merely renting it. We try hard to immortalize ourselves with caskets, urns and tombstones, but we will all be forgotten, there is no endless fame.

We level forests to make caskets and leave graveyards in their wake. We use non-renewable metals to make urns just to seal them away forever. We see ourselves as so exalted, so above nature that our bodies are too precious to give back to the Earth which has made us.

"Bury me naked in an unmarked grave, cover me in soil and let go of my remains, plant a tree in that place, and let that be my crest, give life to the Earth, she'll take care of the rest. May life come from death as it always has been, let my body be food for other life's needs.

This is my wish and this is my dream, a world of forests, where beauty remains. Instead all around me are grey tombstones, shiny metal urns and long forgotten bones. So lay me down and let me rest, the Earth will do what she does best. We're the seeds the Earth has produced, by eternal life, I will not be seduced. We must follow her example, we must follow her will, since it's her bread that gives us our fill. Creation, elation, joy not dread, in death there is peace and let it be said, that through giving in death the Earth shall receive, that future life will be conceived. Doing that will set me free, that I may live and love this way, knowing to the Earth, I'll return someday."