Episode Overview

Podcast: The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily
Host: Maggie Smith
Episode Title: 1402: Gloria Mundi by Michael Kleber-Diggs
Air Date: November 24, 2025

This episode centers on the themes of mortality, remembrance, and the rituals we create around death. Host Maggie Smith opens with personal reflections on the music she would want played at her own funeral, exploring how songs connect to memory and identity. She then introduces and reads "Gloria Mundi" by Michael Kleber-Diggs, a poem offering alternative ways to approach funerals and legacy, urging gentleness, celebration, and a return to nature.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Rituals Around Death

• Maggie shares her funeral playlist: She confesses to curating a playlist for her memorial service, seeing it as the "last party" she'll ever host in spirit.
• Humor and family reactions: Maggie’s children tease her, calling her “so dark,” but she frames her planning as thoughtful rather than morbid.
• Parallel to wedding planning: Maggie notes she put equal care into selecting music for her wedding; important moments deserve meaningful soundtracks.

2. The Emotional Power of Music

• Music as a time capsule: Songs instantly transport us back to particular times, places, or people in our lives.
• Maggie's hope for her funeral: She wishes for guests to share stories, experience both laughter and tears, and feel her love for life and for them.
• Notable connections: Maggie lists bands and songs that mark different chapters in her life (The Cure, Pixies, Liz Phair, Neko Case).

3. Introducing "Gloria Mundi"

• Smith contextualizes the poem as one of "directives and requests" for how to honor a life.
• She admires and re-reads this poem often for its tender wisdom and perspective on legacy.

4. Key Themes in "Gloria Mundi"

• Permission to grieve personally: The speaker encourages mourners to "arrive on your schedule," even to skip the funeral for other important plans.
• Celebration of ordinary life: Rather than somber rituals, the poem asks loved ones to "keep dancing, tend your gardens, live well."
• Ephemeral and earthly existence: The poet reflects on the smallness of each life but sees beauty in being "a worldly thing among worldly things."
• Transformation after death: There’s a moving proposal to “repurpose my body, mix me with soil and seed, compost for a sapling,” emphasizing usefulness and renewal.
• Memory as living presence: The departed asks not to be fixed at a moment of meeting or parting, but remembered in the fullness of lived moments “in between.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Maggie Smith’s Reflections

• "I have sort of an odd confession. I have a funeral playlist...I don't find it morbid at all. Really. I think of my funeral as the last party I'll ever throw, and I'll be there in spirit at least. How's that for a mom joke?"
  — Maggie Smith, 00:52

• “Music is like a time capsule, isn't it? Listening to a song transports you right back to a time and place, and sometimes to a person.”
  — Maggie Smith, 02:00

• “Most of all, I hope everyone there knows how much I loved being here on earth with them, how I would have loved to have stayed. How I hope, though I can't say I believe it, that we'll be together again.”
  — Maggie Smith, 02:50

From "Gloria Mundi" by Michael Kleber-Diggs (as read by Smith)

• “Come to my funeral dressed as you would for an autumn walk in the woods. Arrive on your schedule. I give you permission to be late, even without good cause.”
  — Smith reading Kleber-Diggs, 03:14

• “Celebrate me there, keep dancing, tend your gardens, live well, don't stop think of me forever assigned to a period, a place, a people”
  — Smith reading Kleber-Diggs, 03:34

• “Make me smaller still, repurpose my body, mix me with soil and seed, compost for a sapling. Make my remains useful, wondrous. Let me bloom and recede, grow and decay.”
  — Smith reading Kleber-Diggs, 03:54

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:52] Maggie Smith’s funeral playlist confession and reflections on music’s role in memory
• [02:50] Hopes for her own funeral and legacy
• [03:14] Introduction and reading of "Gloria Mundi" — attendance, attire, and permission to grieve uniquely
• [03:34] The poem’s focus on celebration, dancing, and gardening in lieu of traditional mourning
• [03:54] The poem’s request to repurpose the body for nature, embracing cycles of growth and decay

Summary

This episode of The Slowdown invites listeners to reconsider the rituals surrounding death, the mandate to grieve uniquely, and the urge to be celebrated for life's vibrancy rather than mourned solely for loss. Maggie Smith’s personal vulnerability sets the tone, bridging to Michael Kleber-Diggs’ poem, which offers a gentle counter-narrative to standard funerary customs. Both Smith’s anecdotes and the poem advocate for living well, remembering warmly, and allowing even farewells to be creative, compassionate acts.