Planning Ahead: What It Felt Like to See My Headstone Installed

“When we drove home from Mosier, I knew I needed to write a poem about the burial spot, and I’m enclosing what I composed.

It was great to be there on that beautiful day, and our special wait for the shroud was another chance to soak in the silence and watch bluebirds and woodpeckers in the trees.

Thank you for your personal touch!”

When you visit me

When you visit,

know i chose this place
to keep it quiet and sacred,
to let the grasses harbor
small spring flowers
and drop dry seeds at will,
to give the oaks breathing room
and the birds a home
in their branches,
to let the air carry the calls
of woodpeckers and warblers,
swallows and sparrows,
jays and hawks.

The solid part of me
will be in the soil
becoming bones that
prevent trespass,
feeding worms,
bugs and microbes.

Till my offering is emptied.

The rest of me—
no one really knows.
From some high vantage point
I hope to see the black cliffs
speckled with succulents,
the trees with leaves
turned silver in brisk wind,
the whitecaps of a faithful river,
the mountains
clad and reclad with snow,
the meadows bursting
purple, yellow, blue.

But if I don’t,
I treasure having seen them already.

Perhaps they will not matter afterwards.
But they matter to me now.
And my body will hold
a piece of this landscape
between two stones,
one black, laced with gray lichen.
the other quoting a hymn.

“Since love is lord of heaven and earth,
how can I keep from singing?”