I sat with you

when you were newly dead:

just a puff of air away - or universe...

the wrinkles already smoothing

from your face like melting wax

while the octogenarian redness, stress

faded to a marble dignity

becoming ageless, impersonal

and  austere.

 

When I ponder in the stillness

 and follow my zen breath in and out

to the floaty zone:

 - tangles of seaweed lolling on the swell - great birds gliding on the thermals,

thistledown

I find that same falling away of lines,

the tensions and scrunched-up eyeballs loosening up, letting go, falling off

slowly slowly, with the slowing breath,

the quieter pulse

like gently, nearly dying, slipping away

out of this tired old body and time

lifting away weightlessly,

sliding into that ancient portal

like a new-born birthing.