Matter

by Elizabeth Tibbetts

If I didn’t walk these grass paths,
fit my fingers to the stones to trace
names and dates, births and deaths,

if I didn’t count the last breaths
of the dying, how could I know
that I too will soon lie down

and give back my heart and lungs,
even clothes, to repose a bone pot,
sprung basket, a silenced clatter,

to become matter the flung–open
lilac seeks, or the hydrangea,
heady with blooms, roots for,

dowsing in the dark among bone
constellations and scattered
erratic stars: diamond, buttons, teeth?