Ashes In The Wind Poem by Patrick William Kavanagh

I watch them fly,
Biting wind brings streaming tears to red-rimmed eyes,
Air so cold, it creeps into the bones and chills the very soul,
Where will they go,
These ashes in the wind.

Flesh and blood reduced to memories,
Purified amidst a fiery blaze,
Those abandoned, stand about in sullen daze,
Where will they go, when all that they once loved,
Are ashes in the wind.

The flesh is gone, the Spirit is revealed,
Like a shining light to the blind,
Like a symphony for the profoundly deaf.
The fragrance of a rose outside a shuttered window,
Those who go before us leave us signs,
but all that we can see,
Are ashes in the wind.