Our poet lovingly praises the endangered American burying beetle while musing on death and the undoing of death.  I love her surprising, albeit culturally unusual, perspective.  Beetles depend on the opening death brings.  If we recognized this dependence is equally true for us, how would we live then?  May you ponder in peace, friends.

American Burying Beetle

They kill nothing, but fly to the site

at the slightest whiff of the just-dead —

one small body slipping toward

eternity, each cell giving in, the corpse

of an unfledged finch sinking inexorably,

a fraction of an inch at a time.

 

Beneath the carcass, a beetle pair,

on their backs, digging, twelve legs

thrust as levers, four claws shoveling

earth away. The grave fills with a body

turning to rankness, form transforming.

Beetles depend on the opening death

brings. They pull out every feather,

make flesh ripen into green.

 

On the altar of existence they condense

life to liquefaction. And when their larvae

waken, white and blind, they will press

palps upon them, one after another,

let them sip from that pool. Flags unfurl

from the tips of their antennae; black

bellies rasp against the crimson scarves

of wings. These are the sorcerer’s markings:

death diminished, pulled out from under, undone.

 

By Barbara Helfgott Hyett, from The Tracks We Leave: Poems on Endangered Wildlife of North America.  Copyrighted material; for educational/therapeutic purposes only.

*  The American burying beetle is one of nature’s most efficient recyclers, feeding and sheltering its own brood while simultaneously returning nutrients to the earth to nourish vegetation and keeping ant and fly populations in check.

Now, for some musica by Weather Report.  Written by Joe Zawinul, Birdland ranks as one of the up-beatiest instrumentals ever.  Clap your glad hands!  5:57 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvhmaNlLgRM

And Quincy Jones’s take.  Damn!  5:39 minutes  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-uQMASvl3A

Google covers of Birdland and you’ll find takes by Freddie Hubbard, The String Cheese Incident and more!  What a find!

Image credit:  Missouri Department of Conservation