Literary / Arts
My Brother’s Ashes
Douglas Henders, © Side Glances 1977
Volume 32 Issue 1, 2 & 3 | Posted: March 14, 2018
I have just learned
That when they asked to spread
My brother’s ashes
In the same woodlot
As my mother’s
My sister said
Absolutely not
For He Drank, You Know.
So I have instructed my heirs
To take a teaspoon of my own
Incinerated grit
And place it in
The ill-omened
North-east quadrant
By my sister’s house.
And so, when a chill
Ontario wind gyres through the hardwoods
She’ll feel a grain of sand
Beneath her eyelid —-
It’s just me
In death as in life
An irritant.
I have just learned
That when they asked to spread
My brother’s ashes
In the same woodlot
As my mother’s
My sister said
Absolutely not
For He Drank, You Know.
So I have instructed my heirs
To take a teaspoon of my own
Incinerated grit
And place it in
The ill-omened
North-east quadrant
By my sister’s house.
And so, when a chill
Ontario wind gyres through the hardwoods
She’ll feel a grain of sand
Beneath her eyelid —-
It’s just me
In death as in life
An irritant.
Douglas Henders, © Side Glances 1977