The Butterfly Urn

“Ashes, that is all I am—looking up at you;

whose the fool?
“I take up such little space, inside this little

urn—
“you’d think I was a butterfly, in a

cocoon.
“Just keep me if you wish, in a corner of a

room in your home:
I won’t say much—I got many other things

to do.”

#1374 6/22/2006

Note: The urn is preferred for many reasons in considering a proper burial; and as in many Asian countries it is kept in a home (as in Japan); some times—as in Cambodia, bones are kept (of the loved ones) in a little open-ended shelter in the backyard of a home (folks have been kind enough to show them, and allowed me to touch, and hold them, they feel they are residue spirits in a way), most made out of wood. It provides a closeness you will never get, putting a loved one in a cemetery, that most people never go to after the day they bury the person. In some cases this is perhaps good, depending on your memories of the person. In Peru, people do go to cemeteries quite often, an exception to the rule. And in Haiti, where I spent some time, a cemetery is preferred, they save all their money for such an event, it is like a holiday, another exception. But in America, they can’t wait to put you in the ground, call the insurance company up, and run outside and celebrate, spend the money, and will never step a foot back in that old graveyard again.

On one hand it is a cheap burial compared to the grand tomb, of modern man, costing between $10,000 to $30,000-dollars; in Minnesota you can do a service, nice Urn, and cremation for $1400-dollars, and take the urn home for everlasting warmth. Young Americans think this a tragedy, and so do some Peruvians, it only proves one thing, their inexperienced limits of the world: they think they live in a one-world parking lot.