Some days, I can hear a parade in the distance: there is joy out in the world, a celebration, confetti, cakes, laughter, not for me.

Some days, I stand on the side of the road, sobbing beneath the sunset: this is waiting for death.

I REMEMBER A TIME BEFORE MY HEART was cratered as the surface of the moon.

IN THE MORNINGS, I FOCUS ON THE URN.

“Good morning, Father,” I say.

Outside, the purple sky begins to drop a slow snow upon us. My hands move calmly to make a nice coffee, a small breakfast of an egg and a slice of toast.

The urn gleams at me all the while, a knowing silver eye.

I TEND TO MY SADNESS LIKE A WOUND each day.

I STARE OUT INTO THE STRETCH OF MY backyard, which blends into the foot of my mountain. I can feel the urn watching me as I consider the land, a plan. The eye is hot, metal, probing at my body, trying to enter my thoughts which are of a single silver shovel.

PAIN HAS MADE A PEARL OF ME. I CAN feel the breath of death pulsing, shaping me, making a knot of me again.

VISION

All around me, the world was expanding. Waterfalls were becoming oceans. A snake was devouring fur. Talons were clawing still-pulsing organs. A man and a woman were in love. A woman was giving birth. Another woman was inside of a glass box, chest expanding, ready to die. The woman was me.

IN A SMALL AREA OF FLAT GROUND IN MY backyard, I bring the blade of the shovel to the soil and begin. I use my weight to press it deeper into the earth.

I dig the hole two feet deep just to be sure. The pine trees at the foot of the mountain watching over me, a line of green priests.

The earth smears across my forearms, my fingers caked in dirt. The fresh scent makes my vision sharper, and I move faster.

I glisten sweat from the brow, I feel it pooling at the small of my back. A small mound of dirt piles next to me as I haul more earth out of the ground for my father’s grave.

◆One of the oldest known burials took place 130,000 years ago

◆Certain prehistoric societies de-fleshed the bones of the dead before burial

◆In England, those who committed suicide were often buried with stakes through their hearts

◆The Anglo-Saxons would often bury groups of urns together, believed to be family members

I PLACE MY FATHER INTO THE MOUTH IN the ground. The silver shimmers out of the dirt in the low sun, metal against soil.

I get back to work, piling dirt in high mounds above his grave so it will settle flat. I know how the land likes to behave. I don’t know any prayers. Instead, I nod at the land which holds him, my lost father.