Jay Lind

WHEN I DIE

Flowers will grow Beside my body as it settles softly onto the slats of a simple pine box

Nothing candy colored or Cadillac-like so unnatural

I will be wrapped in a sheet never dreamed under or loved on

I refuse to be folded into a hole in the ground

I want to be life Ieft to leak into the earth Iike some lucky animal

Some of the good in me will pass through the stems of a prairie flower

And rise from its leaves Iike mist

The morning I woke up first to make a fire and heat the coffee just outside of Mombassa will float away on the cotton-like puff of a milkweed Only to latch on to the bark of a nearby cedar tree

My strong arm will dig a passageway for the roots of an EIm

Dana's wedding dress stained with good Chianti

will bubble up in a fresh water spring And float through sun and shade on top of the clearest creek

Zeke's first breath will swim through the rings of a maple tree and fall like a tiny helicopter into the open hands of someone else's child

All of my memories will mix with those of my grandparents and be the air

-Jay Lind

will hang loosely on the end of a willow branch

My desire to make a difference in the inner-city