was taken from his cell
where he had laid down to rest
during the thin hours of his last night
and dismembered by the best of his friends
the righteous ones
who had come into his life at first as farmers
working for years in the hardened fields
before entering the monastery above the town
and giving their lives over to the incredible
as if they were pollen carried in a stream.

Then the parts of his body
are carried higher up the plateau
and there the animals and birds devour him
as if he were a sacred meal prepared by the monks
the righteous ones
for their other selves
the ones they will come someday to be
or the ones they were before.

And when there are only bones
the bones are ground to a fine meal
and baked with flour and yeast
and made into bread
and the loaves are broken and scattered
across the plateau for the birds
who return to finish off the monk
who enters their small stomachs
like pieces of a dream.

And his friends
the righteous ones
hear the songs of the birds
and hear the sounds of the night around them
and wait in the darkness of their cells
for the final passage toward their own migrations
knowing they will be blood and gristle
and transformed too, if they are lucky
into the energy of wings.