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Sport 39: 2011

When I am laid in earth

page 194

When I am laid in earth

(after Purcell, for Jane)

When I am laid in earth
this half-life in your mind
is my continuance—
not long, or loud, but
intermittent, like the fault
in the machine that can’t
be diagnosed or fixed

by anything but patience,
time, or blind chance; a
break in the static, blip
in the daily traffic that allows
a brief transmission through
from our shared history,
whichever part appealed,

appeals enough to you
to hear it, weeks later
and then months, and years;
what you will hear is what’s
essential, true—for you,
who are the quick and thus
the breath of me whose song

has gone to sleep in silence,
but still murmurs when the
trees repeat their leaves
each spring and when
the leaves fade into earth
that I am laid in. I am not
gone until you are.

Remember me.