While It Is Still Dark

While still dark enough to be called night,
yet just before dawn, I think of you hundreds
of miles away turning over in your bed. 

You have slept a heavy, peaceful sleep
and now it is time to tend to livestock,
hundreds of them, and soon thereafter
lead them out to pastures.

It is a life you longed for since your youth
and have given yourself over to it as if to a great love.
It requires your body all day long, your every
waking thought and even your dreams. 

You tell us that when your time comes
we should spread your ashes on the land,
the land you have loved with your life.