Where can I go
without my mount
all eager and quick
How will I know
in thicket ahead
is danger or treasure
when Body my good
bright dog is dead
How will it be
to lie in the sky
without roof or door
and wind for an eye
With cloud for shift
how will I hide?
The concluding lines suggest that utter nakedness, total exposure, is an integral part of our fear of death. Even a naked physical body helps to “hide” us: our guts, our thoughts, our feelings. When we’re dead and part of the air around us, nothing but  the “shift” (thin underdress) of cloud will stand between us and the world–which is to say, nothing at all. 

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