death:
an abnormality—
deep prints left by
heavy boots filled with water
and washed away by
summer’s end.

grief:
a metal
sensation denude of
coldness—swelled up again
and again from life’s ***** driving
deeply.

I suppose you couldn’t
help but steal away.
you (now endangered
ghost) left your
trace fossils moted,
gray and cold.
our memories of you
divorced from the
mountain’s path—
a wound raised
higher and higher
to a crystal peak
where your soul
was plucked cleanly out.

we built cairns to
mark your going
and stories to signal your
inevitable re-arrival.
we welcomed the heavy contact
of fire felt in the
middle of the chest
and watered
arches cut beneath
the eyelids.
we felt the frigidness of
lit feet gliding
above mountain frost
and set forth your
eternal journey
to the solar eclipse.
but somehow
we lost your trace fossils
frozen in the rock.

where did you go?
who found you?
why?

these are the questions
of extinction of the
physical body
but the soul is
unmatched in
its uncertainty.
if it exists, it leaves
upon time of death
and reenters when looked
at through shielded glass.

soul:
a mountain
view, black and polished
by an unfurled moon. its
brother sun not far
behind.