2011 Issue - Santa Fe Community College

Knitting My Shroud
by Dallas Huth
I intended to be cremated and had written a poem of instruction for
my children for the disposal of my ashes:
Outside the kitchen window
is an orange Austrian Rose
where I scattered your Dad’s ashes.
Take a cutting from the rose
and carry it home in a zip-lock bag
with a little dirt from around the base.
Mix in some of my ashes
and plant the cutting in a sunny place
until it takes root.
If it doesn’t, go to the nursery,
buy another Austrian Rose (rosa foetida)
and try again.
But in the latest ‘Hey! I bet you didn’t know this!’ exposé I learn
that toxins released into the air from a cremation could pollute a city
block. Even the fillings in our teeth contribute to the mercury in the atmosphere.
Cremation releases dioxin, hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric
acid, sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide. Cremation also requires a container,
a plastic or composite box that may contribute other pollutants.
In New Mexico and probably other states, it is legal to be buried on
your own property, but I have no old homestead cemetery where I can be
laid to rest. Then I learn there are green burial sites. Washington State
now has three cemeteries certified "green" by the Green Burial Council,
a group formed to reform the death care industry on ecological issues.
Green cemeteries do not use embalming fluids, non-biodegradable
caskets or permanent grave liners and vaults. They use products that
48 Santa Fe Literary Review