I would have loved the Tibetan Sky Burial poem. Is it possible to get a printed version of it? I would absolutely love to read it.

The bone art reminds me of this artist I once knew who lived in New Mexico – her name was Penny, and she used bones for her painting. She asked me and Spencer to pick up some coyote bones for her when we were traveling down to Mexico a lot, and since we saw them all the time, Spencer said OK. We got the coyote on the way back from Mexico to NM to cross the border. At the border (US side), the border guy asked what was in the duffel bag (where Spencer had put “Flora,” and the guy paused, trying hard to think his way out of this. So he went and got his big book out and thumbed through the pages, being careful all the while not to look at us. Then he finally said, well, I guess it is OK – they cross on their own all the time anyway. I could tell he really didn’t find out if it was true or not.

At our friend Louisa’s house in NM on the other side of the border, we had hoped her big strapping hunter type sons would be there and would take care of Flora so that she could be sent off to Penny, but they were gone, so the job was up to Spencer and me. We looked at each other with a sort of horror you would have to see to believe, and then Spencer got an idea and said that he could take care of it. Well, his idea was to spray old Flora (whom Spencer had decided was pregnant as her belly was very swollen – we didn’t know that meant gases were building up) with Lysol, wrap her in an old Army blanket and put her back into the duffel bag, and then off he went to put Flora on the bus from Deming to Santa Fe. Little did we know that for some reason, the bus got delayed, and didn’t get there for another day or so, and when it did, Penny’s hubby knew Flora had arrived when he walked into the station. The person at the counter looked at him kind of funny and asked him what was in the duffel bag (again, notice how everyone is afraid to take a look themselves) and he replied straight-faced as you can imagine, “I don’t know. Smells like a dead coyote to me.” Of course Flora didn’t go home with him either. His solution to how to take care of Flora was to take her to the hills where he left her body out in the wilderness, figuring that the sun and wind and nature would do its job and that he could come back later and get the bones for Penny. But when he DID go back a few weeks later, not a trace of Flora remained!!! Now there’s a good bone story for you!