When you die
people will talk you up
fatten your totem pole into fierce faces
of defiance
because you were strong, because your blood carried
the weight of your legacy and your ancestors
when you die
I will wear your ring on my finger if I am still around
and every sunset will pull the moon down
her mauve redolence
aching in my chest
to hold you against me
for when you die
memory will become a marriage
between us, and the ether
I will live in the past ever more so
recalling the days we spent
living our life in each other’s gastropods
it is my belief we carry within us
the seeds of ancestors and loved ones
blood and violets, oshibana in focus
and each step we make on this earth
we walk alongside the invisible ones
who hold us up when the going gets tough
recently, the going has been very tough and I have
beseeched the stoicism of those who are not here
to see me through
I don’t have their solidity, you know
nor their earnest lust for life
at times I think a brawny wind could
carry me off
I have at best, one foot on the ground
the other is hurtling in a rêver
a dream of less grief, less pain
where we can unfurrow our sails
and drift on burnished water
I was asked not long ago
what I most wanted out of life
and it seemed such a banal question
when struggling to survive
but really that’s the point isn’t it?
To keep putting one foot in front of the other
staring at the setting sun as it blooms
fattened orb of life
just as capable of destroying
a metaphor surely …
for our riddled
minds
(homage to Nomadland)
TheFeatheredSleep 