“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”
      —Frank Lloyd Wright

Some die slowly, over months or years,
and don’t know where they are or who they are,
their bodies a spreading purple bruise,
while doting nurses play “Old MacDonald,”
and no one answers or honors their prayers:
“Get away from me! Let me lied down!
When I am sick and dying, please don’t say.
“The Lord will know when it’s time,” or,
“It’s good to see you. We love you so much.”

You don’t love me, or you’d roll me out
through the rainy woods, that spirit-filled wilderness,
that heaven on earth,
where I don’t need to know who or what I am,
where I’m a part of earth’s tooth and claw truth—
eat and move, or die—
where my body will turn to water and dust,
and the Holy Ghost is an absence of fear,
and God is an absence of pain.