Inscription for a Gravestone
By Robinson Jeffers

I am not dead, I have only become inhuman:
That is to say,
Undressed myself of laughable prides and infirmities,
But not as a man
Undresses to creep into bed, but like an athlete
Stripping for the race.
The delicate ravel of nerves that made me a measurer
Of certain fictions
Called good and evil; that made me contract with pain
And expand with pleasure;
Fussily adjusted like a little electroscope:
That’s gone, it is true;
(I never miss it; if the universe does,
How easily replaced!)
But all the rest is heightened, widened, set free.
I admired the beauty
While I was human, now I am part of the beauty.
I wander in the air,
Being mostly gas and water, and flow in the ocean;
Touch you and Asia
At the same moment; have a hand in the sunrises
And the glow of this grass.
I left the light precipitate of ashes to earth
For a love-token.

Songs

Songwriter Joyce Rouse (aka “Earth Mama”) observes: “Music is the jet fuel for every important movement!”

So here we would like to create a list of “Songs for the Green Burial Movement.” If you have any suggestions for additions, please contact me.

• Glen Alyn – “Stainless Steel”
  When you bury me, don’t you place my body
  In stainless steel, inside a concrete box.
  Let me touch the earth, cool, moist, sweet Mother,
  Where my bones can spread into the roots of time
• Ysaye Barnwell – “Breaths” – Poem by Birago Diop; Music by Ysaye Maria Barnwell © 1980 
  Those who have died have never, never left
  The dead are not under the earth
  They are in the rustling trees
  They are in the groaning woods
  They are in the crying grass
  They are in the moaning rocks
  The dead are not under the earth
• Joe Crookston – “Fall Down as the Rain”  (YouTube)
  When my life is over and I have gone away,
  I’m gonna leave this big ol’ world and the trouble and the pain.
  If I get to Heaven, I will not stay.
  I’ll turn myself around again and fall down as the rain.When I finally reach the ground, I’ll soak into the sod.
  Turn myself around again, come up as goldenrod. …
  “Then when I turn dry and brown, well, I’ll lay me down to rest.
  Turn myself around again, as part of an eagle’s nest.
• Grateful Dead – “Ripple” from their American Beauty album:
  Reach out your hand if your cup be empty
  If your cup is full may it be again
  Let it be known there is a fountain
  That was not made by the hands of men
• John Denver – ‘Homegrown Tomatoes”:
  When I die don’t bury me
  In a box in a cold dark cemetery
  Out in the garden would be much better
  ‘Cause I could be pushin’ up a home-grown tomato!
• Kansas – “Dust in the Wind” – (PS22 performance on YouTube)
  

  … just a drop of water in an endless sea
  All we do crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see
  Dust in the wind
  All we are is dust in the wind
  … Now, don’t hang on, nothing last forever but the earth and sky…

• Laurie Lewis – “Garden Grow“ (YouTube) from her album One Evening in May. Live Performance (YouTube)
  I want to go back to this sweet Earth
  When my time comes to go
  Just lay me down beneath that ground
  So I can help this garden grow
  Don’t preserve my empty hull

• Sarah Pirtle – “My Roots Go Down” (lyrics and background on official website)
  My roots go down, down to the earth./
  … I rise with the voice of every living thing.

• Sarah Pirtle – “Lay Down Your Weary Burden” (lyrics and background on official website)
  Lay down your weary burden. Open your heart and sing….
  We are the pulse that’s never ceasing…
  We are the strong wings…
  We are the wind that sweeps the greeting.
  We are the salt spray….
  We are the dream that’s never ceasing.

Words and Music by Malvina Reynolds.
Copyright 1961, Schroder Music Co.

• Earth Mama (Joyce Rouse) – “To Rest in the Green”  “If you love Nature, envision a natural resting place when your life ends to once again be one with the glorious beauty of Earth.”  Watch on YouTube with lyrics and beautiful nature scenes.

  No shiny brass or fancy scroll do I require at death,
  A simple shroud or piney box after my last breath.
  Just woodland flowers beside me, violets at my crown
  A mourning dove to serenade when they lay me down.

• Pete Seeger –“To My Old Brown Earth”  – (YouTube)To my old brown earth
  And to my old blue sky
  I’ll now give these last few molecules of “I.”

• Guy Clark –  

• Pat Humphries (“Emma’s Revolution”) – “Swimming to the Other Side”
  from the album Hands.
  • “Swimming to the Other Side” – Song Review by Harold Wood
  •  Story Behind the Song – from NPR, All Songs Considered (2002).
  • Buy the Sheet Music here.
  • Chorus:
    We are living ‘neath the great big dipper
    We are washed by the very same rain
    We are swimming in this stream together
    Some in power and some in pain
    We can worship this ground we walk on
    Cherishing the beings that we live beside
    Loving spirits will live forever
    We’re all swimming to the other side

See also:
Fitting Tribute Funeral Service Green Burial Playlist
(A Collaborative Spotify Playlist):

For more information about Green Burial movement see:

• Green Burial Council
• California Green Burial Network
• Planet Patriot Green Burial Page