Next Life

1.
The gravel trail is level but frailty comes
quickly on a slow walk
around Sylvia Lake, I rest on a bench

between two old cedars, memory dies
into fog over the lake.
How did I get here? The dream fades

to dust, I reincarnate, recycle,
rebear affliction, this is the next life
again, a stepping stone.

2.
I'm encumbered with bristly parasites,
vermin and pests happily survive
on essential body fluids cycling
through my organs. I manage the offenders,

send them on to a better existence,
I'm the aggressive mortician with traps and toxins,
stalking the droning, buzzy flies.
Squashed, they come back as graceful swallows

ingesting droning, buzzy flies.
Crumpled spiders are wrens in the next life
crumpling spiders. I think on Sedge Baker
coming back as a paving stone.

Choice Ku

from a small pallet
I write this and that
or that and this

~

the price of a bottle of wine
feeds me for a day,
or sleeps away the small ache

~

November winds blow
soft rain with a hard edge
or not

~

the perfect idleness
of watching twilight gather –
a plover calls

~

a good place
to dump the body –
thumple