I’ve been hearing offhand stories of weird deaths lately.  Of isolating men dying inside apartments and not being discovered until their decaying bodies alert the neighbors.  About murder outside someone’s door.  What’s that about?

We all die.  We are all visitors.  Sometimes slowly, quickly, inadvertently, easily, or with anguishing struggle, we wear out.  The earth of us gets tired.  We have pull dates when the skin, the heart, the toes, the nose simply spoils.  Time to return to the sweet loam of dead things under our tired feet.

Thus it is essential that I keep the conversation going with the other side of the veil.  “Hello God!  Hi Mom!  Yo Dad–whassup?!”  Or like the brilliant awareness of my ancestors, I have a death chant that I keep on my lips as much as possible.  While standing in line, riding a scooter, feeling pain, taking risks, wandering the office halls–“I love you I love you I love you I love you.”

It is a lullaby that is sung from me to you, me to Her, Her to me, trees to me, me to trees, breath in me, to my breath, earth to me, me to the dear tender real home of earth.