Wrap me in a shroud of cello music—
Let me pay my boatman with
Close and heathery melodies –
What sphere’s music exists that is so fine,
So wise and yet so impossibly human? –
Lay me to rest to the tree’s lullabies,
The music of plants, who remember
And do not speak.
Place me in the house of strings,
And let the chapel be hung with the low
And whole notes of a mournful instrument,
And speak only with bow-kissed strings,
Let the only tremor be in fingers
Pressed, calloused, along the smooth cords –
For if I am bound up to death like Persephone,
Let it be to the sound of wind
And moors, furred with lavender,
Feathered with this fairy music,
For then I will not perish in death,
But come again into myself –
Like a butterfly or a bear,
Awakening into daylight
Unblurred, undrowsy, unashamed of sleep.
©K Paige Medina 20 November 2017