Combating the Finitude of the Grave

You find a deer mouse lifeless at your doorstep and bury it in the yard. Place your pencil on the page where you imagine the grave. Now begin to trace the contour of the mouse: the skeleton, the pulmonary system, the limbic system.

Next, trace along the lines of potential transformation. The first may travel like phosphates do, reaching towards the tree roots and up the trunk, to the leaves as they’re chewed on by caterpillars who get plucked by the bird that flies to the nest to lay her eggs.

Return your pencil to the grave to find the next line. This one travels in the belly of a beetle, up from the ground, across a rock face and back down into the soil.

Come back to this drawing as many times as you like. To the tree with caterpillars that’s now felled for firewood. To the fledglings leaving the nest to find bugs for breakfast.

There will always be movement.
Always transforming. Always becoming.

Prompt by: Krista Davis