Going Home

This body will return to earth

become one, again,

with the round world: seep

into soil, dissolve

decay into richness

life-giving

dust, remnants of a kind

flame, scattered

motes of blown smoke

collected by the smallest of creatures;

water, the most of me, pattering

outside a listener's window becomes

Water of Life once more

runs sparkling

in a river, a lake, the wide

sea;

evening mist wets each

leaf and web glistening

droplets evaporate in the sun;

bank-teetering trees

flow with sap in Spring;

pregnant Autumn berries are disseminated

by migrating birds.

My body will encompass the Earth.

Thoughts, memories, affections, dreams -

the bright intangibles -

will they suffer composting

radical recycling

the soul's rendering down and return

to another soil in another ground

lose their form disperse?

These things I cannot know now.

I do not remember.

Nothing of me will be lost but

connections will dissolve.

I will be free

then.

10:30am Saturday 6 November 1993 (rev. October 1995)