I went to Dorothy Cutting’s ‘funeral’
On my electric bike
Because she would have approved of that.
Visiting her little seaside house – for the last time? –
Packed with books and collected artworks and protest signs and flowers from the garden and friends and happy chaos,
Prowled by a bengal cat called Luke Skywalker
Where
Dorothy would preside
Pouring out her opinions, discoveries, outrage, delight
Always lit with life, dancing even when sitting down
Leaning out for love, pouring over with love to spare.
Visits with her were
Like mad hatter tea parties where
She’d peel back the layers to get
To the heart of the heart of the matter.
You’d swap riddles and leave piled with questions,
And a crucial mission she’d have bestowed upon you:
A trip to the cutting edge
Led to mischief of the very finest kind.
All she demanded was that the world be healed
And that you – yes YOU – got up and did something to make that happen.
In exchange she gave and gave: witness
The sign hung down by the beach reading, instead of “no trespassing”..
“At High Tide You Can Use the Path Behind the Boathouse”
She died at 90, exactly as she wanted:
Free, on purpose, without remorse.
Her children scatter her ashes
Into the rain soaked sea
Then her friends
Toss flowers from her garden – rose, cosmos, dahlia, sunflower –
After her
Petals dotting the surface with brilliance
The way she always did.
Riding home
Sweater thwacking my legs, rain running down my face
I am drenched in gratitude
Laugh crying at how— of course! — Dorothy’s funeral march
Is a sprint!!
And feeling the glad absence
Of the neurotic bullshit she removed from me
And the eternal presence
Of the antic joyfulness
She incited, that
Goes on and on and on.