Indolence swept by my fading figure

as I laid my head to rest

among the charcoal lilies of a dying season.

People will scatter my ashes, I thought,

In shadowed places where moss

will smother me while I'm dead.

These thoughts, morbid as they were,

stemmed from a conversation held

between two elderly men

each gambling their lives to the other -

if you die first, so on and so forth.

Yet, I thought, what was this incessant churning?

The mind's willing knowledge out of dust,

willing control out of desperation,

or a tightly held hold on activity

when action is past pursuing?

So, instead, in passivity and peace,

I laid my fate down

In the scarred ruins of autumn

and prayed for the sun to shine

on my upturned face.