Ashes

If there was a place 
I’d want my ashes spread,
to see them fly,
it would be here, 
but not for all 
the normal 
reasons why.

For, already I am widely spread;
my deep affections shaken out across 
this little spur where two small valleys 
join their marshy beds.
Pheasants jangle in the tangled fen; 
a stag barks in the wood
then barks again.

My soul is buttered thickly on this birch,
so besotted by her beauty
that I could not tell
if she had caught me 
in some ancient woodland spell.

My ever fickle heart has fallen
head over heels in love 
a hundred time with pines,
and bracken banks where rabbits burrow in the sand
and marshy land where morning light 
so brightly beamed in mist 
it seemed I nearly 
worshipped all of this 
and feared it counted 
for idolatry.

My breath is mingled in this air
my soul has seeped into the soil, 
and every touch on every leaf and blade and bough 
has left a vestige of my body there that lingers now.

I only ask my ashes to be here
because I want to give a little back;
to top the soil with nutrients it lacked;
a flush of greenery from 
phosphates in my bones,
a little sweetness in the sandy soil 
from all the calcium I owned.

But if it all should seem 
too morbid or too hard, then spread
a little bit of horse 
manure instead.