I scrawl my name and the date
On page after page, form after form,
Raise my right hand
And swear that I have been truthful.
The notary affixes her stamp
And I dispose of my earthly goods.
But with that vow
I silently make another:
I wish my children
Noisy family feasts
Rowdy toasts and lemon pie,
Or time in Tanzania watching elephants
Lumber across the savannah,
Trumpeting to the heavens
And kicking up
Majestic clouds of dust,
Kilimanjaro in the background
Or miles of Mozart on a beach,
The copper sun sizzling as it drops
Into the Gulf, and leagues of Bach,
His Brandenburg Concertos blowing
Through conch shells,
Leaving perfect sand dollars in their wake.
I leave them too the alchemy of others:
A touchstone in the private joke
That still draws laughs,
A knowing hand
The reaches past sinew, muscle, bone
To find the vein of gold.
But most of all, I wish my kin
Journeys that burst with light,
Blind them
In the end
Like Saul
On the road to Damascus.
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