Just Leave Me Be Right Here

The Dog Tag from where I lay

This is my chosen place

I get the good winter sun

This was not an accident

And it is not a crime scene

Please to leave me be

I do not bother anyone

The crows are done with me

And now I bleach my bones

Let me be alone with my peace

This place is not on the map

I came here on my own

I mean to stay for good

Don’t need an investigation

Don’t want no death certificate

Don’t got any next of kin

Go away, I’m busy listening

I am not even trespassing

My taxes are all paid up for good

This stuff is biodegradable

I don’t make any noise

I came here on my own

No one else is responsible

I have no other home

This is where I want to be

Got no affairs to settle

The snow don’t bother me

I don’t light no fires

And I’m not camping here

Smile back at me

Look into my empty sockets

Do not bury me

Leave this note upon me

Turn my skull to the light

This is how I want to fade

Go on and get away now
And please just leave me be

My Last Wishes

No one should use any method on me that artificially maintains my life

If I am sure to die and there is no real remedy, let me go without regrets

I wish that my organs be donated should they be of use to anyone else, but not for profit

I do not wish that I should ever travel to any funeral home

I reject being embalmed and will have no one pay for any commercial services

Keep the undertakers and the preachers strictly away from my passing

I ask that I have no coffin but merely a simple, degradable piece of cloth

In fact, a warm and trusted old wool blanket will suit my needs quite well

I accept no spot within a cemetery but prefer anonymity in some open land

Just keep me far away from the traffic’s poisonous roar

I request that no strangers speak over me unless no one else knows me there

I specifically deny that preachers, ministers or priests use me as their prop

If you can find it, you might read The Beckoning Void very quietly

A little gentle music would be nice, if anyone there can play

I would like a shallow burial such that I might help nourish the good earth

Please plant some native species directly over my unmarked grave

If times are bad or I am poor, simply leave me outside in my work clothes

Feed me to the crows, rodents and insects and let my bones bleach out in peace

Let me face the Winter sun should I perish in those snowy mountains I loved so very much

Leave me somewhere that is unvisited and unlikely to be disturbed

My writings are all that I have of any personal value

Do with them what you will

Give my stuff to my wife, family, relatives and friends in order should they want it

Then donate it all to charity, recycle it and, finally, throw away anything else that is left

Know That I Loved Life

Know that I stood in the painted caves in which they dwelt and took a bit of them away

I felt them as they stood behind me, hands upon my shoulder, helping to point my way

I saw fully my own short cycle in the informal death of insects and other forms of life

I knew eternity in the long pause between metronomic, meditative breaths

Know that I have felt life so very strongly that it has brought me to tears

I have loved and been loved for all of my best years

I have howled to the wind, the stars and the vast cold emptiness above

I caught sideways glances at the eternity into which my consciousness always slid

Know that my nostrils quivered and I needed to run off in the cool twilight

I understood that I wasted the vast proportion of the tiny time allotted to me

I watched those who gave me life as they showed me how I, too, must pass away

I struggled with and worried over unimportant issues, for far too many years

Know that I take the shame of certain actions with me as stones I cannot grind

I thank all of those, anonymous or dear, who always helped me in my blindness

I plunged onwards reckless and without direction too full of selfish cynicism

I came very late upon some small understanding of those who just quietly do what is right

Know that I could not accept my weakness and imperfections for far too long

But I was engulfed by the silence between the clock ticks on a Winter afternoon

I had to totally lose my way to realize I had never considered where I was going

I only began to escape my emptiness when at last it began to fill me up

         

Know that I was ever grateful for the sentience blindly granted me by the life force

I worshiped the wondrous cosmos but shunned all forms of religious orthodoxy

I struggled to express myself as intensely as the marlin, the tuna and the dolphin

I was taught to think and to question only to be forced to accept and to play along

Know that I believed in comfort and efficiency always proceeding hand in hand

I am ashamed of our unending commitment to hate and death through war

I am embarrassed by our thoughtless, foolish trampling of this sustaining earth

I believe that we are far too many now, to be so reckless, wasteful and error-prone

Know that I do not strive to attain so-called heaven and have no fear of any hell

I believe my thoughts and actions will gradually dissolve within the great entropy, over time

I fear the permanent loss of my mind more than being dead forever