In the Time of Dying, Meet Me
Father of mass & air pressure,
turbulent altitude & dewed skyline.
If these burgundy wings carrying me across
Your vulture-strewn puce road should weaken, should fail,
please descend with me. Just once
borrow a tenor & talk
to make my plummet an easy sprint toward sea sand floor.
Bend low Your busy ear so my last asks of You land intact.
My uncle, King Cobra on his breath, once said
anyone who stays in the wind too long never leaves it behind.
Let it be true. Let me be
both here & not here completely.
Let some of me be nine black hickory leaves jitterbugging
on the proud curving lip of any given gust.
Let me be story, in that way,
when these tensed lungs struggle no more or work.
When I am man no longer,
new in shape, beyond blood & gland,
let my uttered name be a blue note lanterning my loves’ voices
from time to time. Anoint what red dirt of me is left
through hymn. Father, let me be occasional music after shh.