Ashes to ashes,
Dust to dust
We birth,
live and die
within that “to”

To smell the space perfume
Dripped by stars
Through the firefly night

To stroke the storm
That jerks the chains of leaf and limb
Insistent that trees heel

To finger your lover’s face
Taste the heavy honey
Of bodies shared

To glimpse a child at play
in a world not of any god’s making
creator of a private universe

To wail in silence at a wake
Pound fists sore
On death’s locked door

Ashes to ashes,
Dust to dust
In that short “to” lives
All the beauty and terror
Of life