I want
to remember this day
on my deathbed: my wife,
the soap artist, weighs
the oils, adds the essence
of lavender, fills the pitchers
ready to pour; our beautiful
pregnant daughter places
the molds in their insulators;

at the hundred gallon honey
tank with the olive, cococnut,
and tallow oils for a thousand 
bars, our son-in-law stirs
with a canoe paddle 
like he’s rowing to Kalamazoo;
I lift the pitchers to tip
the milky liquid into 
the molds, to the very top

without spill over
over and over as a cool 
breeze blows through
open doors, Van Morrison’s
Into the Mystic on the radio,
2 cats and 2 dogs outside
asleep on the sidewalk,
suddenly I reach the tipping 
point of the tao

where pouring is effortless,
I’m pouring myself
into the soap,
pouring pouring
pouring out everything
my life my death,
I look up and see
my wife, daughter, son-in-law
smiling at me from the future

holding my hand
radio in the background
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly
the waters of my life 
pouring
                  pouring
                                       out