Burying an Animal on the Way to New York - Gerald Stern

Don't flinch when you come across a dead animal lying on the road; you are being shown the secret of life. Drive slowly over the brown flesh; you are helping to bury it. If you are the last mourner there will be no caress at all from the crushed limbs adn you will have to slide over the dard spot impagining the first suffering all by yourself Shreds of spirit and little ghost fragments will be spread out for two miles above the white highway. Slow down with your radio off and your window open to hear the twittering as you go by.

In this poem there are four words that really stick out:  "...the secret of life."  Whoa! that is huge"  What does he mean by this?      Maybe by saying that, he is trying to make the argument to respect death.  But "the secret of life"?  Is it that the dead know more than we do?  Is this "secret" something that can be figured out?      His thing is "helping to bury it"--the dead animal.  Does he think that by doing this he might possibly uncover "the secret"?  Why do we as humans pay so much attention to things that are dead?  I know that he is saying that people usually do not, but why should we?  Why should anyone care that someone or something is dead?   It is just something that happens;  we have no control whatsoever over it.  I reckon it is something we have to decide with our own personal morals and values.  It is not something that can be explained.

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