A Simpleton's Request

Koshu Kajikazawa - Hokusai, c.1830

When I die, as I'm bound to do,
Don't put me in a box;
Confine me not to neat little rows
Or anything that locks.

Don't freeze me in abhorrent age,
Forget my memory;
For it was not the I that was important,
But what I saw in me.

I should not wish to be remade,
An echo wandering out of age;
Let my voice be heard in others' laughs,
Not in a mortal cage.

I do not want to be confined
To the beauty of the earth;
Damned to lie beneath the skies,
These cold eyes seeing dirt.

The questions that I could not answer,
The beauty that I missed,
Inherent in a skylark's call,
Concealed within a kiss

Are not for you to go on seeking,
My quest is at its end;
I lived for me, so live for you;
You, the dust, my friend.

Life is made of smaller things
That move within the whole,
Orchestral movements caught in bursts
That spark amongst the coals.

Brief fires burning to consume,
So others may bask in heat;
Piles of ash and ember thrown
into little rows so neat.

Let me die as I intend to live,
As grandeur in darkness gropes;
An ephemeral spark in eternal dark,
Lighting love, and joy, and hope.