A final resting place

I imagine the place I

Wish to grow into and,

Eventually, to die and I see

Mist covered land, a wintered

Chill and little house,

Fireplace and huge veggie

Patch, thick with growth

Dense packed and abundant.

A rose garden, because

Everyone needs a rose garden

A distant back paddock

Buggered at first and then

Restored through simple

Attentive land care. And time.

A land nursed to health,

Well watered with sweat,

Dreamed alongside as the

Rains fall and the animals

Mutter in the long summer

Eves and the short winter days.

Where the birds and the insects,

The reptiles and all the wildlife

Come home, in refuge, and

I've let it become through

Thought and heart and

Mindful observation

With the riches of abundance

The reward of effort.

And a wisdom that grows

Earth bound, flowers and

Bears fruit, yet remains local

Never divorced from the

Place that drew it skyward.

As a tree in a forest

Is a product of the

Place, can't move unless

Killed, so too this life, this

Wisdom, founded in its

Home, in its landscape,

In the taste of its earth

Its air, its rain fed water,

All in union, in conversation,

One with the other, and

All together, myself

But a part of the whole.

In this land there shall

Be a place of my final

Internment, chosen, carefully

Tended to share my body

With the soil, my final

Gift to the land.