Drafting a Will at 29, Just in Case

DRAFTING A WILL AT 29, JUST IN CASE

To the earth my bones. 

Preferably in a big wicker basket, 

but if they insist on a box 

than a box of untreated wood 

so as not to delay the exchange 

of goods. Also to the earth 

the many poems I reached down

with dirt-filled fingernails

and lifted from it to call my own.

Forgive this callus act of plagiarism. 

To my daughters a deep furrow

of skepticism towards anything 

with chemicals, gears, or bloodless brains, 

the courage—despite lacking

the credentials—to open the hood

and see what's making that clacking

beneath, and a love of the following:

baseball, the apple trees we planted,

the many trees we didn't plant, neighbors,

all things slow and placed, 

all things mysterious as the song

quivering in the thin space

between guitar strings, and anything

else I'm missing which is

good and real and too big to list out

or tie down with even the entire

three feet of unfolded cerebellum,

which is another way of saying

the wisdom to shrug their shoulders

repeatedly, staying foolish enough to believe

in lightning bugs and other evening

rumors of light's final victory.

To my wife the shears to continue

pruning in our daughters

and any other children or grandchildren

I’m not yet accounting for

these seeds. That, and an apology 

for all the time I spent apologizing 

for not loving her better 

as a cheap substitute for doing it. 

To the Eternal Exhale I return 

mine, and anything good that came 

of it (as interest.) To the Eternal Inhale I go 

like the dust to which I’ve returned. 

The rest of you can pick 

me clean of whatever’s left. 

Just close the door quietly when you leave— 

the dead, I’ve heard, are light sleepers.