When I Have Died Poem by Thanh-Thanh NhuanLe

If you feel like lazy, lie down at home freely;
What use to visit, some minutes adds nothing really.
Eyes are closed. Body cold. Skin bluish pale.
Even vermilion/paint applied: still dark deep stale.

I have gone first, we will meet there at that place.
Nobody can exuviate to live for ever in this space.
One ahead, others next, queuing to graves pure;
Who knows where is the beginning of the tour.

If you weep, just weep for those remaining
From now on missing confidences entertaining;
They also lose cordial figures and words to nurse:
Such mutual aid, oh, that is a misstep in universe.

Do not publish the obituary, condolences in papers
Since the ordinary things wasted are only vapors;
Instead buy rice to help the poor and indigent
Soothing the grief of people humble but exigent.

Start festal music so everybody aware of the game
That in this world life and death are of the same.
Once lying down, arms loose, eyes shut, all is chill,
Then, happiness or distress both are equally nil.

Do not build, inscribe my name/age on a tombstone;
Years will have passed, no one will have shown.
The macrocosm is immense, time succeeds time,
Billions and billions have died since the prime.

When I am dead, my funeral? do not solemnize.
Cremate it, send the ash to my country to localize.
With friends is like at home on the globe any part;
Inside myself there is still always that fervid heart.

Then, it is what that collects, compacts, maintains:
There is no difference between corpse and remains.
But the native land is with affection overflowing;
Let me return there, even as dull dust, unknowing.