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How to Commemorate Me


Brothers, scatter my ashes where there is open space,
west Texas, preferably, so blindingly
bright in the harsh heart of autumn.
Sisters, remember me whisperly
where past stony rims Peregrines fly
near sun-scarred cliffs in the profound empty
of mid-October. No one will sorrow
who finds himself to this favored place.
Butterflies pass this sacred spot, averting their gaze.
Sunlight pours through the soul of a cactus
and look! An eagle angles in from Mexico
or another distant mythology.
No, friends, remember me with no glorious tomb,
just with a smile, a story, and a smooth, flat rock
for pondering passersby.


Note to the future: I am now posting as Traces of Texas, being that my friend Stan has taken over my old Faulknerian username and is posting as Go Down, Moses in all sorts of sundry places.

I thoroughly enjoyed this - thanks for sharing it

A
x

Thank you, Alisony.

It reflects my instructions to my friends to have my ashes scattered somewhere in West Texas after I pass away.

Still working on the end, though.

Go Down, Moses writes:

Brothers, scatter my ashes where there is open space,
west Texas, preferably, so blindingly
bright in the harsh heart of autumn.
Sisters, remember me whisperly
where past stony rims Peregrines fly
near sun-scarred cliffs in the profound empty
of mid-October. No one will sorrow
who finds himself to this favored place.
Butterflies pass this sacred spot, averting their gaze.
Sunlight pours through the soul of a cactus
and look! An eagle angles in from Mexico
or another distant mythology.
No, friends, remember me with no glorious tomb,
just with a smile, a story, and a smooth, flat rock
for pondering passersby.

I really enjoyed your poem, especially the lines noted below.

"…so blindingly
bright in the harsh heart of autumn."

and

"in the profound empty
of mid-October. No one will sorrow
who finds himself to this favored place."

How tenderly poignant your poem's serenity breaks open not just another day, but that particular day of your "commemoration". Before your words fall hushed at sunrise, seemingly, the air has just enough time to breathe between this reprieve and the next. I suppose that is the way of the inevitable cyclic return of things. I am drawn to the waxen glow of your poem's landscape, caught up somehow in the sombreness of reflection that carries with it a weathered grief and that for a moment tints my mood.

Isn't it incredible when a single moment and a particular mood cohere and the heart relents. Yet, as the rush of feelings becomes loud and overwhelming, we desperately search for that durable thread onto which we could string all our remaining hours. In the vastness of reverie the "I" quickly loses itself, awakened as we are in such passages of time when we find ourselves alone in the absence of one we knew.

Go Down, Moses, you've sprinkled upon us some dream words that seem to mingle cleverly with the fragile symmetries of gain and loss - expressions held in the slight of breath as chunks of a described landscape roll right into the pit of our stomachs and to the core of our heart. Prismatic raindrops are sure to fall once the moon slows and its crescent passes. In time and on such occasions may all prayers be answered.

And so, I offer you a smile
…from a pondering passerby.

Go Down, Moses, you've sprinkled upon us some dream words that seem to mingle cleverly with the fragile symmetries of gain and loss - expressions held in the slight of breath as chunks of a described landscape roll right into the pit of our stomachs and to the core of our heart. Prismatic raindrops are sure to fall once the moon slows and its crescent passes. In time and on such occasions may all prayers be answered.

Wow, Carm ... thanks!