Proof (Poem)

(This poem is inspired by the Leonard Cohen quotation: "Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.")

Proof

The words:
dove-grey and fleeting as detritus from a bonfire
spiralling upwards to oblivion.
They say this -

Look, here is a person.
Here is breath and vinegar, water and dust;
here is surface glitter and sump oil in the crevasses,
diamonds shining like bloody ice in the sun,
the creeping shade of the moon's dark side.

Here is a life.

This is the proof:
these flecks, these cremains
offered to the incurious world, with both hands flinging
the dust of the heart in the face of the stars.

- Kathy, 3/03/2016