For the Anniversary of My Death

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And boding not knowing to what

W. S. Merwin 1927 –

 

The Day We Die

The day we die
the wind comes down
to take away
our footprints.

The wind makes dust
to cover up
the marks we left
while walking.

For otherwise
the thing would seem
as if we were
still living.

Therefore the wind
is he who comes
to blow away
our footprints.

Southern Bushmen, song

 

I thought these two poems about death made an interesting pair.

Anniversary of My Death bring up an unusual consideration. We have birthdays each year and after our death, our families may remember our death day, but to realize that each year we have this unknown anniversary pass silently without notice gives one pause. Is today the day that xx years hence I will depart? What month will it be; will it be at sunrise or sunset; will I be alone or in company? How many candles will be on this one-time-only cake that our last breath will extinguish?

In The Day We Die we are reminded how transitory is this life, and all our possessions as well as our impact on the world will vanish. The Bushmen, if I am remembering correctly, believe the first people ‘sang’ the world into existence and created song lines across the land during their journey. Perhaps it is the personal footprints on these song lines that must be blown away to retain the purity of creation. The idea of a song as creation sounds right to me – the vibration of sound jelling into manifestation and the consensus of consciousness designing the blueprint of the reality we experience. “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” Genesis 1:31