As Shadows Slide Away

When you look for my voice, find it
in my poem in slightly accented speech,
a Nordic inflextion, a Southern drawl.
When you read and weep about loss,
laugh about my demand of no dust
in the corners, pillows perched on the couch
in formation, forks, knives, spoons stacked
neatly in the drawer. Let my speech be yours,
my words flood your tongue
with decades of knowledge.

As the wind rushes rocks and grasses,
it blow in the direction of time
eternally imprisoned in universal clouds.
You will forget me as time washes away
particles of sloughed-off skin that still cling
to the walls, my fingerprints whorled
in books, eye-blinks between stove and fridge
filling the essence of the kitchen.

I don’t know what life as a soul is like.
Will I hover behind you as you stir
your oatmeal, will I sit on your lap
while you read a book or touch
the hem of your T-shirt as you sleep?
Is this the answer for a spirit dipping
into the wind, basking between
azalea and mountain laurel?
Will I feed with the gold finches and wrens
or be the cardinal sitting on your sill
singing to remind you of me?

None of us know life in the meadow
of weightlessness, where breath is wind
and shadows slide away.
While deer graze the knoll and the coyote
howls, stars become a night light,
a promise of rebirth.