1
Blow on the ash,
blowing you shrink, you vanish
with it, quickly you wane,
you’re one blow less,
blowing gathers in you,
’twill burst out when you open
at your blowing end,
by blowing the world is enlarged, stretched
thereby, widens and hardens,
suddenly you’ll look round:
the lesser part of you’s left
and the part you exhaled sprouting through you,
it’s perused you, it’s better outside you,
it’s a mouth quicker and it knows you right through,
the exhaled part speaks through you
from sleep and in sleep knows the answer,
the rest’s for the corner, the handkerchief,
it did not shine from darkness and did not blow,
the exhaled part turns and lip-smacks,
stamps, the rest flees and has a dog’s head
fitted for barking.
2
– Sigh into the ash, excite
yourself with it through tears or a hymn.
– To the ash make an exit
from dreams or from pulpit and church.
– Grow old unto ash, sadden to it
and pine into ash.