The Gods

When you leave this room
filled with cries and laments
and go to your home
with no sound of steps,

you will enter a wood
where under a mango-tree
the gods stand and wait
for you patiently.

To the god who was your hound
give your hands that pulled at his lead,
to the god who was your father
give your head that received his blows,
to the god who was your mother
give this heart that was always hers,

to the god who would be your son
but who was never born
and to the god who was your daughter
born and soon gone

give the wail of your eyes
and its echo in your chest
and the unlived span of your life.

To the god who was your wife
give a kiss of your coin-parted lips,
let it flit like a noisy plover,
dropping copper on the sky-soaked moss.

To the god who was your house
give the lingering trace of your soul,
let it stay there as a creak of the stairs,
as a whisper in the star-storing well.

When the gods take all you can give
they will let you pass through the wood
as a burdenless breeze in the leaves,
sighed out and completely dispersed.