by Elaine Cavanaugh

At the river, as you scatter my ashes--
watch them swirl beneath a swan's black feet--
ask my spirit, again, what form it wants to take.
I will answer that I wish my body to become
an instrument of music--a hickory tree
in a windstorm, a bur oak in sleet--
a whole grove of aspens
singing their leaves.

-Originally appeared in Hummingbird, 2004.