Moving

Photo by Thomas Stephan, used with full permissions.

Move before the walls tighten,
go before you’re asked to leave.
Breathe in that old t-shirt one last time,
the one that still holds a faint
remembrance of a past lover’s scent.
Say your Pagan prayer
as you lay it down over
the yellow burn of split pine
and watch your spirits
dance to one more song —
twisting and flowing up the flue,
whispering their final, dissipating
goodbyes before joining the
ocean that waits to greet them
beyond the stack’s order.