let them dig up my bones laid in a red clay hole,
long centuries later when the world will have made
many more turnings, settled into some other transitory state.
let them take care, take heed of the trees
I instructed my children to plant, and the trees sprung from them,
their loam lying deep over the ground
that gathered me. still let them find me,
let them wonder what was and what may be
through the prism of old bones and scattered words,
they will slowly work their trowels down past the trace of ash
laid over my grave, time’s burnt horizons.
let them sift the soil above me, gather the carbonized seeds
that we scattered and sowed in the sheltering earth. let them
listen to the isotopes plied from my teeth, and trace out the map
in my enamel. watersheds and mountainsides, oxbows and
blue holes, slow turning rivers and hurrying streams
newly born. chart my migrations, decipher the places in my bones.
tell them that I meditated long on my own taphonomy.
and have them then place my bones back
to rest in their slumber, to wait to rise,
keeping the land company until that great and holy day.