An Ode to Dying

Time, of course,
unseats every part of me
in the same way it does as if my existence
is but a final drop in the brewery left to spill.
Soon, I will be just a thin line
of momentum that runs
through the breaths of the universe
then steals inside the delicate vault of its essence.
Still, my pillage will be one of a frightful gentleness.

This fine herbal tea I am savoring
empties out my mind for a moment.
I shall lean my back against the modulation
of gospel blues, which sings in praise
of this spiral paralysis that is turning
my inside cold and black,
pressing my flesh to the ground.
I sense the pores in the dark grouts unfolding
like tiny stars leaving the earth.

My heart pulls up at the roots,
which are neither thick nor deep
but stringy with diffused reeds.
So down it lies, alone
and tempestuously red,
wrapped in the milky gauze of crunched snow.