Jean Rivard - University of British Columbia

Nature gave all, the harbingers might say.
It is their duty now to take all back:
eyes, ears, blood, heart, breath, beauty, bone.
Life was a loan, one well worth having,
but not an outright gift. Who can complain?
They would be just to say so. Out of the dark
earth I came, and must return
those minerals and moisture to its depths.
Before they return they seal me with death's mark.
But must they have my brain? Must they dispark
the creatures of my mind before I die,
shadows that play in forests of my dreams
or laze in pastures of my memory?
Poems are deer, wild creatures, but beloved,
sometimes half-tamed, nibbling at green in gardens,
willing with homely lettuce to be fed.
Reason is soil itself, and rhyme is water.
Wit is a flame, bursting from sullen coal.
May I not keep within my dying head
Those sparkling notions which therein are bred?