Episode Details

When I die, lay me down under a willow tree

facing my mountains dressed in blue.

Bury me in the costume jewelry

my grandmother gave me-

a ring on every finger

two on each pinky and thumb.

Put me in the ground with my pewter wolf

still nestled in the hollow of my throat

and my sword around my neck.

I don’t want a fancy coffin;

leave me to the crows I loved so much in life.

Let my body be my final gift to the land.

Promise to only tell the truth.

Tell the truth of how I burned.

Sometimes like the sunlight

that peppers your eyelids with kisses

in the dog days of summer-

some days like a wildfire

devouring everything in it’s path.

Tell them of how my rage

blazed as hot as my love

but I never let it hold me for long

and I couldn’t hold a grudge

to save my own damn life.

Tell the truth of how I was a pain in the ass

and would argue a point

until I was blue in the face

but damn it, did I make life more interesting.

When I die, I want you to throw the biggest party

this town has ever seen.

Only the most outrageous outfits will do!

If I look down to an ocean of black at my wake,

I swear I’ll haunt you all.

Play my Inner Summer playlist

on a speaker at my funeral;

turn up the volume as loud as it will go

and dance.

When I die, tell my children

that they hung the moon and the stars in my sky.

Tell them that they were the greatest thing

I ever created.

Tell them that I’ll see them again someday

in some other way

but that until then,

they’ve got one hell on wheels kinda angel

protecting them on the other side.

When I die, cover the ground where I lay

in wildflowers and scribbled lines of poetry.

Put crow feathers, coyote hair, roses and honey next to my picture on the family altar.

Leave the thorns on the stems.

On Sunday mornings,

pour a cup of black coffee on the Earth.

Right there in my favorite spot

where I spent so many afternoons

watching the birds dance and play.

Plant butterfly bushes.

Right there, where I held a ruby throated hummingbird in the palm of my hand

and felt the pulse of God herself

through a blanket of green feathers.

Give my words away.

Pass my journals down to my grandchildren;

let my spells live on in the hands and hearts

of the generations to come after me.

Tear out all of my head in the oven poems

written for that one lover that got away

and mail them to his door.

Stamp two wolves on the envelope