I will never lie in that dark earth.
The soil will never claim me, nor its damp seep
seek out my joints, nor the ants
creep in my marrow.
I will leave behind a cast-off sack
of things that once were mine,
and a pile of bones burned clean by fire
to mark what once had shape and sound.
But I will have gone.
My soul — my seer — will go as you have gone,
to straddle time and gather stars in both your hands;
and recollect with love the smell of wet spring soil,
that blooms over and over again with buttercups and daisies.
