ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS
Sequence: 4
AGAINST IMMORTALITY
I don't want to live forever
I don't want to be taken out of my dying body
I don't want to be more enduring than the hills
their purple color flecked with orange
the black spot of buzzard hanging high above
seeing many hilltops at once
smelling all the threads of scent autumn sends up
the change of weather coming
across the horizon's expanding age
changes in the wind the moisture the order of stars
and change below smaller
sometimes furtive things slowing or stopping
flesh now unmoving slackening richly
giving off its scent of decay
like a beacon of light to the mind
of a buzzard a point around which
one can swirl on wide wings and feel
how the point can dim but while it still
lasts can be the center and inspiration
of a spiral closing in on itself
with the fullness of an apple holding her seeds