The Grave Alternative

Your centre of gravity sinks as you age

Gradually pulling you down

“You’ve had too much time on your feet”, the Earth says,

“It’s time you were back in the ground”.

But there’ll be no grave and no flame for me

As much as those options are sound

I never liked worms much in life you see

And I just can’t commit to the ground.

So I’m going to be shot into space when I die

And leave planet Earth behind

In a ship built for one, or two if you’ll come,

And see what new things I can find.

The moon will sigh as onward I fly

Pressing on into the void

And lightspeed will bend, for I am its friend

And wave as I pass it by.

Faster and faster I travel on

In my limitless boundary of black,

With comets to race and meteors to chase

And millions of stars to map.

Then light years from now, my body is found

By an alien ship and it’s crew.

In space dark and deep, I awake from my sleep

To discover a world that is new.

My friends go exploring in worlds green and white

And show me the stars, how they turn through the night

‘round planets with oceans and ice at the ends

That nod at my coming as if we were friends,

And I’ll wait there and grow, and learn all that they know

Until you are ready to come

And there newly raised, for a handful of days

I will bask in an alien sun.

A million times later, the end of the Earth

Explodes you towards me as ashes and dirt

Then with all you with me, to the wail of guitars,

We burst into flames, and turn into stars.