Page 12 - vera-kilgore-heilig-her-poetry-lives-(2017)-h-morris-williams-and-marie-law-haire

Vera Kilgore Heilig: Her Poetry Lives (2017) H. Morris Williams, Marie Law Haire

Death

When I know that my time has come to die

I want to climb the highest mountain peak
And stand a moment, poised twixt earth and sky

Facing my God alone where no man is.
Then with perhaps one solitary cry

That no ear on this earth shall hear
Except one lonely eagle soaring by

I’ll topple down into eternity.

I want my lightened soul to go

In the path of the eagle, swiftly, silently.
My body must be shattered on the rocks below

Into a million atomistic parts

So that no single soul can ever know
Just where or how I died.

And my bones must be crumbled to powder so
No one can say “Here lies the body of...”

No funeral procession with a solemn pace
Shall follow my remains to quiet grave.

God’s eye shall be the only eye to trace
My swift descent. The wind shall sing my dirge

As my dead body catapults through space.
Until one final bound shall shatter it.

And no one shall ever come to mark the place

My body lies, but God himself, when I have died.

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