Meeting

to be a human
came a conversation with Death
pertaining to tears for what really never was
And in such therefore I wept
oer loss of you
 
wanted a bottle
of the finest to share in death
an exquisite embrace for all the lost moments
came a bitter glass it left
Bitter residue

In a Moment

Your breath was vital on my breast
For a moment.
My breath caught in my throat
For a moment.
And you were gone.

I can only lament to my Father
For you were wonderfully stitched
For a moment
Then you were gone.

I have my tears
I have my broken heart
I have an empty chasm

But hope is greatness
Though peace is so very, very
Hard.

You were my sunshine
Eclipsed by loss
O God why have you sent me
This messenger of grace
In a vessel of tragedy?

Through these clenched hands
Eyes, lips
I cannot but weep and weep
O’er what you’ve given
And taken
In a moment.

This breath of life
You’ve taken for your own
To grow in your realm
Away from me.

But the sun shall shine
The Son will shine
Upon him,
And me
In eternity.

O God, warm me
For the cold today
Has taken from me
The life closest to me.

O God, return to me
The breath, the vitality
The strength I had in thee.

Restore my joy
Though my loss weighs immensely
And my breast
Is empty

All this
In only a moment
Though all along,
You were with me

________________________________
First published
December 28, 2015 3:22 am

For my friends, Tedd and Kylie

And for Anika

And for Brad and Stephanie

And all the rest of you

May the Lord, in his goodness, give you peace.

Set Me Down

I Drove this road
A thousand times
And never stopped
But I wanted to stop
Wanted to drop
My boot heel
In the dust right here

Where everything else
Is a hundred miles away

From that greasy joint
At the side of the road
Where they take your last buck
Just cause they got you
Just cause the Flyin’ J
Is a hundred miles away
Up past the horizon’s mirage

Silver all a shimmer
That never lets you stay

I still want to give ’em
My only last dollar
For a dusty tin cup
Of black coffee
A bit of leaf for my briar
And watch the rest fly right by there
A hundred miles from anywhere

As they look for somethin’
I already found along my way

Left my heart in the dust
On a ribbon of a road to nowhere
You’ll still find my shadow there
Back broken, knees bent
Bent as my soul
That fell seven years ago
Into a cool well at a secret spring

Under a crooked cross on a holy dune
A million miles away

Look in my hands
See this dust
Take my bones
These lonely bones
And cover them up
With this

Don’t play me a dirge
Let the heat waves shimmer-dance
On my bones
On these sticks and groans
Just let the wind fiddle
A lonely tune round the cholla
On my bones

On these lonely bones
Just let the desert play

There’s a burnt ravine
Tween Hatch
And the brass of the Tucson sky
Out in the saddle-sore gulches
And wind-beaten scrub so dry
When I get too old
Take me on that long road

Till I can’t walk no more
Then set me down

On a hot rock
Under the old creosote
With the lizards and cicadas
The sun burnin’ my jeans up
My lips chapped, crinkled as a crone
As these crows’ feet in a squint
Let me taste that coppery dust

One last time let me just
Breathe it into these bones

Let my last sight be
A dust devil dancin’
Those darned quail a-skitterin’
And the mourning doves
Up on the lines above
Serenadin’ me
In peace while I lay

In the grit of a forgotten wash
A hundred miles away

At high noon
When the sun is blazin’
Burnin’ up the long long sands
Put my sweet girls in my hands
Put your cool kiss on my cheek
Don’t cry, I wanted it this way
And leave me here to stay

So far from anywhere.
A hundred miles away

__________________________________
Originally posted June 5, 2010

Last will and testament. If it won’t work out as written, put the ashes under that tree, please. The rest? Proceed as directed.