Composition in Grey and Pink

The souls of the day's dead fly up like birds, big sister,
The sky shutters and casts loose.
And faster than stars the body goes to the earth.

Heat hangs like a mist from the trees.
Butterflies pump through the banked fires of late afternoon.
The rose continues its sure rise to the self.

Ashes, trampled garlands...

I dream of an incandescent space
                              where nothing distinct exists,
And where nothing ends, the days sliding like warm milk through
     the clouds,
Everyone's name in chalk letters once and for all,

The dogstar descending with its pestilent breath...

Fatherless, stiller than still water,
I want to complete my flesh
                         and sit in a quiet corner
Untied from God, where the dead don't sing in their sleep.

Charles Wright