Death.
This is a poem
I didn’t want to write.
These are thoughts
I didn’t want
to acknowledge,
a pain I didn’t want to hold.
They were in a car wreck
yesterday,
all three of them,
and for a second
when I found out,
I imagined it—
what happens when
death calls and asks
for the lives we
aren’t yet ready to
let go of.
But I imagined it,
because it could
have happened.
They could be gone,
and everything
could have changed
on a simple Sunday
afternoon.
But, it didn’t.
Not yet.
So we hold each other close,
we dream on,
and we give thanks
for every single day
that is meant to be
ours.
Death
you have been all around lately
children and teachers in a school
a one year old baby shot in Pittsburgh
my (former) father-in-law, that I dearly loved and respected, gone from a heart attack days ago.
those are the deaths I can barely take in over less than a week.
Death,
It is one thing to visit someone in advance years in their sleep
or surrounded by loved ones saying goodbye.
But you, death, are a bastard when
you take the young and the young at heart.
Sometimes, you are a blessing.
Other times you bring a stench
strong enough to smell and feel
that hangs thickly among us
for us to breathe in.
Are there two of you?
If there are two,
I can work with the good one.
walking along side as others greet
(prayerfully, one day me, too)
you at the end of long life's journey.
The bad one
I abhor.
I started writing poetry
to resist
and counter.
To create is
to stand up
in the face of death
and proclaim
life
Death
I’m living alone for ten days right now
And I’ve been thinking
“this is what it will be like when mom’s gone”
And even though I have my cats, and my books, and my friends nearby
I can understand why loneliness leads to death
It’s an unwanted kind of solitude
When someone’s gone, it is
A blank space that can never been filled in again with the right color
Because that color no longer exists
It was a ‘limited edition’
I just want to finish the picture
Before the crayon runs out