when death’s cold hand takes me down and flesh and bone lay underground will my soul just cease to be with all its precious memory   or will it fly on golden wing to places where bright angels sing or lost ones moan and demons weep and wail in vain in fiery deep   does it find another life in newer worlds of joy and strife or...

I was free for a minute -- not all of me but enough that I could finally breathe   i took it all in, too -- swallowed all of it at once, fearful of the inevitable loss, and held it warm against my old manbones as long as I could, my soul dancing like a feather in the wind