On My 35th Birthday

I let a hand lead me home for grace,
and were it not for grace I would have
stayed to see you pass the time.
But I am old in my young years,
and 35 seemed much too fine an age for me.
I left it for you to do, as for me, I had
to walk the soft lips of eternity
and could not stand the gravity of earth.
It hurt my feet. It pounded my ears. It made me heavy.
I lay my weight with you, my sister,
with our brother, our mother, and our father.
I lay my weight with you, and
sit for a spell under the river birch
to rest and watch as life blossoms into night.
I write in my book of you and press my dreams
onto your spirit like flower fragments
forgotten in an old dictionary somewhere.
And you will be bright like red stain paper.
And you will be tough like a pig skin bag.
And you will write in your book of me
and follow grace home when the hills call.
And I will catch you there, on the flip side.