Alive

Alive


After I die
bury me beneath a tree
that I shall live again.
Breathe on me, sweet breath,
tell me you love me
for I shall inhale your essence.
It will feed me.

Water me not with tears
for they are bitter and full of salt.
Bathe me instead with laughter
bubbled from the fountain of you.
Pour your troubles at my roots,
let them sink deep;
let them go.

Touch me. Touch me still.
Let your fingers caress
spring-blown blossoms, Lean
against gnarled roots and
knobby knees. I will support you.
Climb and swing from my boughs
remembering a child still thrives inside you.

Bring your children. On a warm, summered day
tell them your stories of me so I
am not forgotten in the forest.
The many leaved layers of their lives.
might bury me for good elsewise.
Let them measure their hands against
my memory-filled trunk and I will hug them.

Feed me with your lives -- the sprigs and twigs
of winter walks, of autumn rambles,
of Christmases missed. Let me swallow
the petty arguments; you don't need them.
Fertilize me with dreams of what may come.
Let me grow wild. In life, I was not one to be pruned.
Don't try to fit me into some preconceived notion now.

Do not, I beg of you,
carve your names in me for it will cut my heart.
I have always known you, even before
you were born; I will not forget you now.
Take spring blossoms, fallen leaves
to press between the pages of your life's book.
These, I give you freely.

Write me letters, leave them for me.
write me the poetry of your lives, the stories
of heartbreak and triumphs. Tell me of
not bowing to but standing strong against
weathering moments. See how I bend with the storms
that I not break. I still have much that
I will teach you if you but look and see. Be.

Should lightning strike my crowning branches,
split me in two to smolder in the wood, know
I have stretched as far as I could in this causal plane.
The essence of me shall rise to greet
the sunset and I shall travel between the stars;
the better to watch over you.
And I shall live once more.