Farewell Letter

I try to put it in chronological order, 
starting with the day I was diagnosed: 
startling forsythia, yellow ribbons of wishful  
thinking knotted at the branches’ tips—  

footprints of whomever put them there. 
Evensong  of peepers, composing a lifetime 
(I cannot tell if in symphony, or dirge, 
or some pop ballad lamenting brevity—

                    thrush and loon lure me to the river’s
                    edge). It’s not that serious, you know,
                    this dying. We all do it—from the thread
                    of conception, migrating like box turtles, 

crossing hyperventilating streets, closing in  
on the allure of endings. Of course, the undercoat  
is the half-wish, Viking myth that good warriors 
turn immortal—the other half longing to 

drop what’s left of kinetic hope. I meander back
to what the word means, the scant diagram, 
ball at the crest of a hill, picking up speed 
as it rolls: She’s going downhill—but no one 

                    says what’s at the bottom. Maybe it’s 
                    Maidenhair Fern and Coneflowers. Or 
                    Honeysuckle and English Ivy. Or someone old—
                    whose birthday you always remembered.