Postscript

The acquisition of a soul
Is the riskiest part of life,
Homeward journey for homesick king.

Five hundred rolls of papyrus
From Egypt through Byblos to Greece
Could not convey enough culture

To keep one modern soul alive,
And what fragments of that shipment
Might flutter ashes like eyelids

When the wind blows across his pyre?
Every breath a body inhales,
They say contains atomic pasts,

But what is exhalation's gift?
The soul becomes the body.
The soul starts to breathe at death.