When I have finally died for real
and all your bright medicine men
can’t pump my silverdust of blood
down those long corridors of so much of me
as they can measure;
when my irony at last gets the last word;
when my sentiment plunges gloriously into oblivion,
singing at the top of somebody’s lungs;
when I’m dead, gone, out, fini, kaput and morte;
then do for me this final kindliness:
Bring my flesh beneath a winter moon
and lay me on a silver bier with roses,
the soft-pink kind
and strike a fire to the whole damn mess
and stand back. The moon will claim her own.
At dawn, grin at the sun for me
and save my ashes in an earthen urn.
In Autumn, when the hillsides turn to gold,
wait for a day when the wind blows toward the West,
then scatter my ashes, all that remains of me,
and go home laughing.