Poem: When you come to the river crossing of Death

Albion's Dance - Blake

Albion’s Dance – Blake

When you come to the river crossing of Death, don’t
bring your wallet, credit cards, cash. Pictures of your beloved,
leave those too. Don’t wear a cross around your neck.
Your family’s Koran leave closed on the shelf. Don’t come
expecting pet views and peeves to amount
to anything more than moments of Sun on
the glinting surface of Be.

When you come
to the that still and moving Body of Omniscience,
unclasp your clothes, let them fall. Cut
your hair to the scalp. Know then the smallness
of your life’s speech, the vanity, the noise, the
irrational tangle of gaggle and gasp. Only then
will you know the truest Word was God
riding your breath in the surrendered silence
of dreamless sleep. Recall then
what the unlearned body never forgot.

Joseph Miller, Virginia Cyn, August 2015