Train me
in the fine and necessary grace
    of dying.

Teach me
to paint the watercolor wash
    of my own decay,
to draw in delicate detail
    my inevitable deterioration,
to compose my private melody
    of loneliness and loss.

Then I shall be ready
    for resurrection,
to be the me
    imagined at the world's beginning.

Text and image © 2013 by Dirk deVries. All
rights reserved.