Ash To Ashes Poem by Patricia Fritsche

As a child the sky was the ceiling

To everything

Starting to fill up fast

Upon the death of a loved one



The ritual of burial

Flowers strewn around

The drama of heavy eyes unfurling

The thing that was most important to me was escaping fast



As I chased the butterfly

Avoiding his landing

On the grave but, stayed with me

Choices began surfacing fast



As it left each space

No time to linger on and on

Time's irrelevancy turned around

Filling empty pages within this murky memory



Knowing the pain of loss

Would be there for me to swim through

Die a thousand times in the arms

Of all those reassuring hugs



Flashback videos in my heart and mind

Maybe, cremation wouldn't be bad after all

After twenty times of this playback

Of death of flesh so near it became clearer to me



Illusion to disillusion back to spiritual reality

Returning into peace where apple blossoms retire

Bulbs take a break for awhile

And refurbish the land again.