The Harvest Comes for All of Us

poem

Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash

---

Now that I've lived this long
as a reservation-raised Indian,
I want three or four decades more.
Of course, I'm keeping score.

I want to die of something
that gives me an appproximate
end date. Wait, did I just
wish for cancer? Well, the two

uranium mines on my rez
tell me that wishes ain't needed.
My future tumors will be larger
than rumors. So, yeah, I want

to get my life in order before
I cross over the border into
whatever's next. I'm not talking
about money. I'm married

to a woman who's made sure
that, upon our deaths,
the financial shit is set. I want
to know when there's six months

or a year left to live so I can be
chanting forgive, forgive,
forgive. I want to organize
the apologies that I owe

to people and I also want
to prepare myself for
the apologies that I deserve.
All of us have harmed others.

We're all sisters and brothers
fistfighting in the neighborhood 
church. But, hey, let me get
back to mortality. I want

to become an Indian so ancient 
that my face is a geological 
feature. Stupid tourists in
rented REI gear should need

to be regularly rescued from
the canyonland wrinkles
that transverse my forehead,
cheeks, and chin. And, okay,

I'm aware that if I make it
to one hundred then I'll bury
almost all of my family
and friends. My sons will be 

a decade older than I am now.
Their hair will be gray!
And my wife, O, my wife! 
Maybe she and I can die

at the same time of natural
causes. Yesterday, a friend asked
when I'll know that it's time
to go. And I said that I'll want

to keep living as long as I'm still
able to tell stories and poems,
even if I need some machine
to deliver the words for me.

I want to improvise odes
on my deathbed. I want
to watch one last great movie.
I want time enough to praise

time. I want my final words
to rhyme. Then I want
my funeral to be half-
mournful and half-hilarity.

I want a Jesuit, rabbi,
atheist, and comedian 
to deliver eulogies. I want
my tombstone to proclaim

that I waltzed with life's
contradictions and road-tripped
with its incongruities. Dear
Mother Mary, Dear Yahweh,

Dear Katharine Hepburn, Dear
Richard Pryor, here's my last wish: 
I want my body to feed multiple
generations of flowers and weeds.