This week, I’ve been thinking of ashes. What they represent. Here’s something I wrote in memory of my father-in-law after helping to scatter his ashes off the coast of Seattle.
Ashes
John Lacher, 1928-2010
Heavier than you’d think
if you think of ashes,
a man’s worth
tucked in a box now
passed from one
relation to the next
as we scatter what remains
on Puget Sound, though
“scatter” is too light
a word. These ashes
plunge, I say
plunge into the cold,
clear water, bone chips
and bits that even the straight
blast of the furnace couldn’t finish.
If you had known this man,
even from a distance,
you would have felt
how hard he burned
himself with blindness
and sturdy rage,
with the diligent weight
he carried in love for others.
And if you had loved him,
even from a distance, you
weren’t surprised how the dust
behaved like stars,
the million particles trailing
clouds of milky smoke
like galaxies, as beautiful
and constant as anything else
burning in the sky.
