Day of the Dead

When you die they say
you get a bird's eye view,
looking down from above
at the mean and meager form
that is quickly cooling
from the inside out.
This is the extent of the report
but I suppose it goes on,
the dead seeing

more and more clearly with time
the fading of things,
the body mingling with earth,
families formed only briefly
and then taken apart
the way cells die.

But then, they must also know
that death brings space,
the space between fingers
with which we hold one another.

Wisdom is sometimes very chilly
when it comes to rest on you
from somewhere you cannot yet see.