Tag: death

If death's angel comes tonight
sweeps with long skirts here
she will find me gentle
every dish washed
each towel folded
marvel that I am ready
as if waiting for the knock
that summons the next life

I read of your death
black letters on the white page
and hope for you
your mother, your father
that it may have been gentle
howl because I share
every parent's insistence:
you must outlive us

I don't fight for the last word
the way some others do
though maybe I should sometimes

There might be things to say
with finality and import
declarations or farewells

You spoke my name that day
without urgency or demand
unwitting balm to years of grief

I was your last word.

Today I touched your life
with gloved hands
your story in a few hundred pages
your heartbreaks
and handguns
the worlds you hoped 
to build for yourself
in that flurry of receipts
and licenses
your father's obituary
the picture posed with your mom
I imagined that day
you signed over your son
to someone else's care
and every hour you bent
over another child's hands
as you taught him to play
with bow and strings
In the end this is each of us
wrapped in paper
ash, and loose change

You think your life must end

Listen carefully:
it is time to die

Not your body
nor your mind
just this way of living

It may even be
your own brave soul
hastening your departure

She knows 
this life is just
too small for you

When I go
let me leave only words
no other mark or monument

If you must stack stones
let them swim from a river
or stumble from a field

Know that this dissolution
this resolution
greeted me as a friend

Had my life crashed
like waves of those before
my ash would already
drift above that hill I love

But I did not die that day
nor my child
as we had every right to do

These years less borrowed
than gifted
though I have lived them
like a chore

I have asked for signs
only to dismiss them
Why orchestrate these
tiny wonders to light my way
when I excuse each one
as a figment of my imagination?

But that morning you died
your green vase jumped from its perch
smashed
dancing bright coins across the floor
and I was assured of the everlasting
the ineffable