Untitled, While Camping (Poem)

I don't know what happens
after the last breath
when the heart's fierce muscle falls silent
when the door to life closes 

I don't know:
no one does or can
pearly hope and gouging fear both only surmises
sentience clapping back at the dark

and this is what it means to be alive, isn't it:
staring into the wide night sky as the milky way blurs into my vision
so many stars and all so distant
and feeling that ache that has no name

watching the autumn sun slip up to irradiate the ribbons of cloud
hot tea in my hand, and my body,
older now, in the way of things,
feeling the cool slap of the morning air deep in the follicles of my hair
watching the orb spider diligently build and rebuild her fine-woven web
rolling insects inside silky packages to keep for later
and the ants, such models of industry, toiling
in a jagged line to take away the nubbin of bread
that fell at last night's campfire

and, later, finding the bones of an animal in the bushland
jaw set forward in the delicate herbivorous face
(a kangaroo, or so we think)
watching my daughter hold the memory of life in her long-fingered hands
the living linked to what has lived
now and always

and I don't know. I don't.
but as my body grows quiescient,
rounded and bowed,
it almost seems, sometimes,
that it's alright, not to know:

that the fire, when it comes,
to burn me away to ash or to release a phoenix
will only do what it is meant to do;
cradling my body back to earth
and letting my spirit go:

to sleep, or to dream;
to silence, or to soar.