Everyone comes back here to die <br />as I will soon. The place feels right <br />since it’s half dead to begin with. <br />Even on a rare morning of rain, <br />like this morning, with the low sky <br />hoarding its riches except for <br />a few mock tears, the hard ground <br />accepts nothing. Six years ago <br />I buried my mother’s ashes <br />beside a young lilac that’s now <br />taller than I, and stuck the stub <br />of a rosebush into her dirt, <br />where like everything else not <br />human it thrives. The small blossoms <br />never unfurl; whatever they know <br />they keep to themselves until <br />a morning rain or a night wind <br />pares the petals down to nothing. <br />Even the neighbor cat who shits <br />daily on the paths and then hides <br />deep in the jungle of the weeds <br />refuses to purr. Whatever’s here <br />is just here, and nowhere else, <br />so it’s right to end up beside <br />the woman who bore me, to shovel <br />into the dirt whatever’s left <br />and leave only a name for some- <br />one who wants it. Think of it, <br />my name, no longer a portion <br />of me, no longer inflated <br />or bruised, no longer stewing <br />in a rich compost of memory <br />or the simpler one of bone shards, <br />dirt, kitty litter, wood ashes, <br />the roots of the eucalyptus <br />I planted in ’73, <br />a tiny me taking nothing, <br />giving nothing, and free at last.<br /><br />Philip Levine<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/burial-rites/
