Classic Poem

Out of the stroke, the change,
The body locked in its death
Like a stream locked in the ice,
The whiteness under the cheek,
The lips forever set
In the look that is always strange
Because we remember yet
How they spoke, how the mere breath
Was enough to make them speak.

I saw the soul arise,
Naked, shaped like a blade,
Free, inhuman and bright,
And where the body was laid
I saw it hover.
It had no need of eyes.
It had forgotten the grief,
The long pain and the brief,
The daybreak, the burning night,
The touch of water and light.
These were over.

It was free. It would not return.
I saw its brightness spurn
Like the heel of a fugitive
The body it hung above,
The body which gave it birth—
It is this I cannot forgive.
It is thus they answer our love
When they are gone from the earth.