The Offering Poem by Sally Sandler

Out of breath, we reach the place
where mountains peak high,
and the earth curves like a whale's back
where sea meets the sky.

In air as pure as child's grace
we try to comprehend …
that we can gaze with God's eye
so far across the land,

and that together we might lift
the vessel that we share,
and the hot ash and our heavy hearts
will scatter in the air,

to be the dust and drink and bones
and oxygen of each
that ever lived and breathed and loved,
or crawled up on the beach.

That all breath is one breath,
we try to understand …
and what we watch become the sky
once held the soul of man.