“Cremation River 1-5” by Kenneth DiMaggio

CREMATION RIVER 1-5

Kenneth DiMaggio

Lines Before Cremation River (#1)

Pyramid-like bundle of sticks on a small dock before a river that looks like it is flowing with slowly coagulating mud

Fire will soon flower over what I squint to see inside

which soon sparks towards me as if saying “Westerner go away.”

For which all my life I have: a quick prayer before an open casket rote condolences to the grieving family well-shared memories of the departed afterwards at the luncheon is how my civilization makes sure

death never happens

Lines Before Cremation River (#2)

A foot --trying to kick the rest of its body out?

But before my imagined escape from death grows more detailed a priest or monk sets torch to the pyre that will soon make a body ash that will get sprinkled into this river that begins in Kathmandu and ends in an eternity that my empirical reality will never enter

A foot trying to kick and help balance the rest of its tiny body out before it is held in the only pair of arms that will always feel eternal

Lines Before Cremation River (#3) He calls me Father even though I never had any children he insists upon being my guide before the pyres that will soon be enflamed before this river

--for which families and most of all sons will have duties that make sure the ashes of their mothers or fathers receive the blessings of eternity

The capital letter E used to equal a number a square a mind that could perceive but still feared entering the eternal

numbers formulas masterpieces failures they all get lost in this never ceasing current Only with a family that mourns but spreads your remains

And the money he asks me for after my guided visit reminds me how I am childless before what has now become an abyss

Lines Before Cremation River (#4)

Before the ashes a temple but also hospice for those who will soon burn in one of the pyres before the river

A wait no more than a few weeks my guide tells me

until then several old men but also women who can still walk but also smile at the fire that will soon ashen them

But in the land where the sun settles we will fight and when we inevitably lose we will grandly in granite or marble memorialize our struggle

and as an old woman gently walks past a man from the West

Death smiles at his civilization

Lines Before Cremation River (#5)

So fast did the pyre burn for you to forget how it also blossomed over a body

now a smear of white and gray ashes

that from out of where a monkey now crouches before

perhaps contemplating food or some other form of existence

in a substance that appears to be dust

yet does not