When I die,

Bury me in the arteries of the Evergreen Mountains next to the long highway,

Where the ice settles in the bottom corners of my lungs

And the dirt beneath my fingernails stings like the roughness of a lover’s goodbye.

I wish to melt into the snow while the ravens sing through the flesh in their beaks,

Let the Devil’s Club draw dark blood from my veins like a warm kiss.

It is hard enough to know God,

More difficult yet to see one in the waters of the creek bed

Who loves as though hearts have never known the feeling of fracture,

Gives as though it is not agony to carve kindness from my innards,

Commands dignity before the towering trees when they smirk upon my weakness;

It is so lonely to worship in silence.

My father taught me that people worth being are besieged with a patience

That is learned only through the ache of undoing,

Taken by a tenderness that curses the kind soul 

Almost as much as it heals the sick wanderer.

Perhaps this kind of sacrifice yields no reward,

Only the growth of a feverish embrace vast enough for God itself.

By the time I die, 

I hope to have lived a life so vast that 

Only the Evergreen Mountains next to the long highway can house what remains of my soul.

I want the valleys to shake with my song when I rest next to the footprints of all the dreamers

Who hoped to find their big answer on a mountain large enough to carry it.

I want no answers;

Just the quiet hum of God, cheeks flushing, finding her way home.

Featured Image by Trevor Wilson on Unsplash

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