Undertone

when I fell from the tree

that summer

I thought that I had died

I lay amongst the moss

and leaves and tubers

and ties uncoupled in my mind

the sky was filled with dandelion

and heather

and soft, unearthly sound

it seemed to me an exodus

from heaven of strangers

coming down

oh down

where once a canopy

benignly waved over my head

now only bitten fingers tick

against a sky of laboured breath

yet it is not so truly unfamiliar

this agitated dream

where mourners chatter at my bed

and suck my flesh into the earth

delivered under to disassemble there

dispersed and wonder-filled

I do not miss the air

down amongst the grasses and

down amongst the beetles and

passed between the earthworms'

mouths underneath the landed dew

air filtering like water

far down below the mourners

in their kingdom come