Promise to Bury Me in the Garden

​​Promise to bury me in the garden 

so I can become a flower amongst trees

and also the butterfly’s wings

Cloak me in mycelial gowns

and let the worms digest my bones

so that I can shell the snails

and give passage to the raindrops

to fill the crystal lakes of the underground


 how could our prayers reach our ancestors

   if they are embalmed from the web of life?

   how could their wisdom teach us

   if they are trapped in a box?

I want my kinchildren to raise me as a bloom of flowers

with stems of my skin and petals of my mind

My life in this human body exists to nourish the garden.

The joy I find as a man,

  will be the beauty of the plants

The purpose I build by day and year, 

  will be the bends of the footpath

The love I give when I am human,

  will be the love I give when I am not. 

Promise to bury me in the garden

So I can drink the rain and eat the sun. 

Promise to bury me in the garden 

and I will live with that garden in mind