In Peace

When my parting breath 
  has exhaled all etchings of pleasure and gain, 
     releasing them to the blind breeze -
         when the milled shards of speckled pain 
           have quit my cooling heart, my leaden limbs, my stale brain -
           when no trace of shame or self remain - 
         build a pyre, pile it high,  
       roll my remains in a reclaimed sheet. 
      Weep if you will. but not for me:
       when you kindle the fire my ashes will fly:
         let them go as, barren, they float away:   
             think only of my freed soul
                  as it traces a trail along a veiled lane 
                    between river and trees 
                  home of our long-gone cloaked roams.
                In the dip where our arms reached,
                there shall I settle, 
                   there shall I lie, 
                           and there, in peace
                                          shall I rest for a while. 
                                                        
                                                   
 ©Jane Paterson Basil