In some cultures, loyalty extends far beyond the fair or rational, but no one controls what happens after tradition is satisfied:
Burnt Offering
(The Virtuous Wife)
This suttee
is easier to bear with eyes closed.
She falls upon his burning pyre,
puts out his flame,
grateful for short rituals.
The pyre,
the bone,
ashes on the sheets.
He cannot touch her.
She is air.
She floats his breath.
She tracks his carbon
down the hall.
She walks
out to the Avenue,
wearing sheerest black
with nothing but a cauldron underneath.
Her fire.
She picks a stranger
dusted by the road,
leans him against
shadows
in the tall grass,
spills her steam,
lifts into
penumbra
above shaded hill.
For dVerse Poets Open Link Night 359
To see what other poems were published, go HERE
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
Sutee, not one of the nicer customs.
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Lucky for you, Lou, not required of men.
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OH, well done, but not very “uplifting”~!
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I love the air and ash in this, and the mystery and intensity.
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Is that still happening? Amazing description, have you seen it? I think I saw such sites when river rafted the Tsuli River in Nepal…Tisuli?
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Yes, isolated instances of suttee, or widow burning, continue to occur in India The last known case was in 1987. Roopkuvarba Kanwar (c. 1969 – 4 September 1987) was an 18 year old Rajput woman who was allegedly forced to jump into her husband’s funeral pyre, immolating herself in an act of Sati at Deorala village of Sikar district in Rajasthan, India.
The event sparked a series of debates and movements, and the Indian government passed the Sati (Prevention) Act in 1987 to criminalize the glorification or aiding of suttee. However, as of 2020, there were still at least 250 sati temples in India where people perform pujas to glorify the avatar of a mother goddess who committed suttee.
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What you saw was probably cremations. I saw one in Bali where the body was put inside a huge fabricated bull, taken by procession to a site where the bull was set on fire…the body burning within it and as the bull was consumed by flames, parts of the body fell out of it, aflame. It was not suttee, however.. just a dead body.
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Are there any traditions where a man flings himself on his wife’s pyre? Just wondering. Bet there isn’t.
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A very sad way to end the life
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None after 1987, Judy. Even that case was one of the rare ones.
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Thank goodness. Every culture has its past horrors. Witness the witch burnings in early British and American history.
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wow – now that’s a poem!
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