Birthday

Precious voyager,
too far from these shores
to see this signal fire
or hear the tremor
in our voices
when we call your name
into remembrance,
you sail

that vast uncharted way
beyond being
beyond the reach
of prayer
and dove,
like a swift-winged

raven
escaping the suffocating humidity
and rancid manure
of eight million species and their
partners
stranded on
the peak

of Ararat,
you'll not return,
your foamy prow
piercing horizons
of expectation,
your gleaming eye
fixed beyond.
Do you

see
at last
some faraway

shore
where the sleepless sun
shines on fadeless blooms?
Do you leave
impressions
when you dance
the sand
with those there
who speak your
name with
fondness? Is
the garden
as bountiful and wild
as the other,
the one we subdue?
Is that

where you go,
precious voyager,
too far to hear these words
whispered
from the broken
deck
of this

shipwreck,
through that dark passage,
that corridor
to where
or nowhere?
Or do you

sail beyond
the solar envelope
beyond the tug of gravity,
out into the cosmic ether?
Out of time
into a glassy stillness
where sky and water
merge
windless
quiet
without ripple
or motion.
That is where

horizons cease.
That is where
you take down the sail
and climb out
of identity. That
is where you
lay down
in that infinite sphere of starry
resplendence. That
is where
being
finally lets go
and becomes.

It is a birthday.