I can describe life

with pinecones, oaks & granite;

with haymaking, games & hepatitis;

with country roads & nylon stockings,

the Ark of the Covenant & cave graffiti;

with going overboard,

going under & in vain

I can read Robinson Jeffers

& William Carlos Williams;

push on & ease off

– but the body remains packed

with immediacies,

impossible to hide from:

bp this morning 150/89,

but tonight 112/64

The cold warms in a defiant way

I wish I could leave alone

everything that has to do with existence;

see time run out and the view clear;

let my feet crackle

in the funeral pyre

and all chakras burst

in turn or all at once

in everything that makes death worth dying:

to be truly alone & totally universal