Your hands are cold
Ice water
That's a nice thought
I walk
And I walk
Till my feet start to rot
Decompose with the soil
You lay
'Barren' about
Press my hands to the ground
You stopped caring about
I think
I think I can't
I can't tell if you stopped caring
Cuz where you went
I can't hear you now
With but one life full certified,
And that of every gleam denied
My portion,
Close to the unrelenting sod.
E'en as my fathers dumbly trod,
I've slumbered;
But now a surging, wild unrest
Uproots the poppies from my breast,
My soul awake, erect! anew!
I stand and face the star-swept blue,
And swear to make my dreams come true!
Not in that wasted garden
Where bodies are drawn into grass
That feeds no flocks, and into evergreens
That bear no fruit—
There where along the shaded walks
Vain sighs are heard,
And vainer dreams are dreamed
Of close communion with departed souls—
But here under the apple tree
I loved and watched and pruned
With gnarled hands
In the long, long years;
Here under the roots of this northern-spy
To move in the chemic change and circle of life,
Into the soil and into the flesh of the tree,
And into the living epitaphs
There is strength in the soil;
In the earth there is laughter and youth.
There is solace and hope in the upturned loam.
And lo, I shall plant my soul in it here like a seed!
And forth it shall come to me as a flower of song;
For I know it is good to get back to the earth
That is orderly, placid, all-patient!
It is good to know how quiet
And noncommittal it breathes,
This ample and opulent bosom
That must some day nurse us all!