Today’s New Verse News: THE CREMATION CRISIS and WHAT TO DO WITH MY DEAD BODY
THE CREMATION CRISIS
by Betsy Mars
A flyer for a campaign to dissuade Jews from cremation. Courtesy of Rabbi Elchonon Zohn accompanying “More and more Jews are choosing cremation. These rabbis aren’t happy about it,” Forward, January 5, 2023
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An ash is an ash of course, of course, unless it's derived from a Jewish corpse. Then under law and tradition (Tradition!) said corpse must be interred, of course. We don't want to reminisce about history when we're enmeshed in a different kind of misery, and the associations with Nazi Germany might lead to regret and painful discourse. But in the end the worms have their way (first course) no matter our religion, and ashes to ashes, dust to dust, so why not hasten the process rather than wasting space for bones and stones (though most rabbis and scholars do not endorse this course, of course)? The Bible does not tell us so, of a prohibition, so off we go, and we're all letting go of our divisions— or at least the pundits tell us so— and at least in this final decision, keeping up with the goyim, assimilation above the ground, not under ground, a shanda.
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Betsy Mars is a prize-winning poet, a photographer, publisher, and an editor at Gyroscope Review. Her writing has appeared widely online and in numerous print anthologies. She is a Best of the Net and Pushcart nominee. Her photos have been published in Rattle (as the Ekphrastic Challenge prompt), Redheaded Stepchild, and as a cover image for Spank the Carp. She works as a substitute teacher, and as a cat wrangler in her spare time. Her chapbooks and small press publications (Kingly Street Press) are available on Amazon. In addition to her chapbook collaboration with Alan Walowitz, she recently worked with artist Judith Christensen on an installation in San Diego which is part of an ongoing exploration of memory, identity, home, and family.
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WHAT TO DO WITH MY DEAD BODY
by Lois Wickstrom
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At his funeral, CJ looked as if he would sit up and laugh when he thought we had grieved enough. He wore his best suit and his best grin. But he never ate a bite of the food we brought. Nobody alive could have resisted that long. Nobody is that good at playing dead. The casket, the rented hall. It’s all theater. Being dead doesn’t require props or an audience. When I’m dead I don’t want anybody to doubt it. My mother was cremated, at the lowest priced place she could find in the yellow pages. My brother sprinkled her ashes beside one of her favorite mountain streams. The smoke from cooking her dead body turned the air gray. I do not want my last act to be pollution. At the green burial grounds, each corpse is wrapped in a shroud of cotton, and buried six feet under. I like the idea of being eaten by worms. My corpse does not need a room of its own. During the yellow fever, more than 10,000 bodies were piled up and buried together in what is now the parking lot where I worship. Being dead has not changed. Being buried means the same. After embalming wears off, caskets corrode, and worms eat us, we will all become fertilizer. Why wait? As soon as I’m dead, throw my remains in the composter. Twirl the knob and spread my loam in the nearby woods. When all my organic parts have been consumed by new growth, layer new dead above me. And let them rot.
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Lois is a former science teacher. She has written a series of science-based folktales, and turned some of them into plays. In each modernized tale, the protagonist achieves a better ending because of learning scientific principles. Lois likes to garden, ride her bike with her husband, cook, and she votes in every election.