They will rasp
like some
         dying in bed--
and choose motion and pause
like divining shells. You

will foot through the dusk's wing
of purple pines, and eye
the white flares of tails:

Here, free a tangled song
for all impermanence.

At this moment,
a maple leaf might discover the current--
         loop fiery,
               a sudden sacrament.

You mount each of these shed
scales on your wall as a memorial--
         devotion
                       in dessicated veins
and collapsing boxes
                          of general cells--
as the body twists back--
                             as the body gestures to recollect
what was, and will be, forgotten.