When I Die

When I die
I hope I pass the way fall passes into winter,
in a burst
of smokeless forest fire
that leaves only hallowed skeletons behind--
reaching heavenward, in their
haunted nakedness--
Saving my glory and my beauty
for the final days before I rest,
I will briefly know greatness
Before God brings me to the ultimate humility.

I will pass on into the unending
fullness of life
Where I will become a writer of psalms
And I will know what twelve part 
harmony sounds like.

I do not know what heaven looks like,
But I know that those who are closer,
when you measure by wrinkles
and years,
are small treasures,
to be admired and listened to--
if only for their rarity.