Ashes to Ashes, Spirit to Spirit

To repent in dust and ashes
Is to make peace with the dust
For from clay the maker formed man,
And to return to dust man must.

But wind returns not to ground
Nor the life into the soil,
For the breath of him who raised man
Up from mud and death and toil

Will return into the bosom
Of the God who blew it out,
For dust returns to ashes
And spirit, too, no doubt

Hurries back into the spirit
That has raised man up from earth
To conjoin in mortal bloodsoak
More spirit born in birth

When upon the pangs of deathbed
Does the spirit born in you,
Seek return unto its father,
As it was designed to do.

But not one-, but three-, or forty-,
Fifty-one-, or ninety-nine-
Fold from one seed in you wedded
By the planter's grand design.

For a child of god is spirit,
Because God is spirit, too,
So let man return to ashes,
And let spirit carry you

Back again into God's bosom,
Where it was before you were,
And the dust, far less eternal,
Will receive the living Word.