Mother, I have seen it all.

I have crossed deserts on my knees,
lay in Greecian sunshine
weighed the scales of justice beneath the
  bayou's cyprus trees
and below these boughs
dripping long Spanish tears,
I have written my story with
  a plumed pen
and combed the vaults of the
  greatest curiosity
my mind mulled over the years
as I displaced warm beads from
  upon my forehead.
I have begun to write my story
to attempt to record the history of
  the world
  before I myself have left it.

ashes to ashes, mother

when I was a child
I grew slowly and walked slowly
and thought slowly
minds are greater than playthings
and I pulled myself under
  soft cotton blankets
and whispered wards to the
  monsters within my head.
Even monsters return to dust
as minds so tragically do
I have prayed to Jesus-God-and ghost,
begging three images of one
some minds go like clockwork
  through the years,
then,
crumble
  to dust before the body.
  I have prayed the Creator will
  preserve my mind
  equally as long as He may
  preserve my hands
so that I might leave to the world
more than my ashes.

I have spoken fondly of it before, mother
  --sin, redemption, and salvation

Adam and Eve did not exist
fairy tales to explain the guilt of men
snakes that once had legs must have
  none but sin in these little lizard feet.
I play with a small black snake
now,
Does he agree?
A mind reader I am not,
but he would prefer the hunt,
as pups prefer the chase,
man prefers the leisure,
and life prefers the strong.
But perhaps Adam and Eve did exist
We are forever unable to know
it is so difficult to begin from
  nothing.
And so where were their plumed pens
and stories written,
a warning to the world of
  sin.
instead man stumbled through
  the dark
  greiving the lightswitch that
  curiosity had broken and
rendered useless
yes, their stories did exist
but we are none the wiser
that is why my frail human
  mind
seeks to be remembered
before we have returned to
  the dust from whence we came
And so we have sinned,
not knowing what sin was,
been redeemed,
crucifying the redeemer,
and been salvaged,
as man so often
  doesn't understand.

Oddities, mother.

Who are you?
You are unlike any man,
  any creature.
You disturb my mind,
even this day so many times that
  after.
I have never seen the likes of you,
  but you are welcome
and i trust you will do nothing
  to harm us.
I feel I have spoken to you before.
Rather than who are you, I ask,
What are you?
Dust.
You who has gone so long before
  me,
has a day been that I did
  not remember?
No day in creation has soothed
  my roaring mind
You died and left my thoughts
in a hopeless upheaval.
I had not seen it all
till I had seen you.
But it's your presence I
  crave again so many years
  later,
You who kept alone,
Quiet and confiding within
  yourself
Your face was so thin,
pockmarked.
You were curious in your ways,
and even after good friends
  have withered,
I find you to be the one
whom I wish sat with me
beneath the weeping cyprus.
To see you again and nod to me
as you read the things I conjure
rather than the snake now coiled
around my ankle.
Your body was only limited,
Your mind a slave within it,
comforted by the feeling you kept
  away.
But your hands, they were divine
  You had touched my shoulder
  once before you left,
smiled,
  and then were gone forever.
I still think of you today,
the one thing I will not understand
until I, too, am gone,
and perhaps then we may
spend time together again
arm in arm, we can walk
  through the gates of Heaven
For something tells me
  you are waiting
and my time is nearer.

Mother, the snake has died.

It was so sweet in its own
way.
It was a creature, a hunter
a marvel of the world
this one animal that bound
  my mind with spells
has died here at my feet.
I miss its company,
for I am now alone.
None but I and the cyprus
  remain
to accompany the sun on
  these banks.
but the light, too, is fading,
and the snake is at peace.

It is time.

I have strived for years
to even consider the words to say,
the things I want to leave to
this world.
I have crawled through mountain
  caves, just to be sure the answer
  did not lie on the other side.
How, may I ask the Lord, am I still
  here?
He works mysteriously, and maybe
might tell me soon.
But what I have wanted to say
is this:
Everything in the world is connected,
Life and Death are connected,
There is no thing as death, it is only
the final stage of life,
and in the end, everything we
have, even our own bodies,
are nought but ashes
  to be swept away by a quiet wind
And the world goes on, untainted,
for it, too, knows it is but dust.

Mother, my oddity,
I am coming.