Day 504: Death

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∴

 

death is not a choice.

 

it comes to us all,
and sometimes
more than once in a lifetime.

 

it comes upon us
like a storm.

 

some deaths are worse than others.
some deaths are longer suffered,
and some are quick
and finite.

but even the metaphoric,
“in-life”
deaths
have an afterlife.

we wake into mornings after,
when the weaker trees
have been felled
and are still,

when the drip-drip-drip
of residual rain
falls into suspended pools,

when all sound seems caught,
as in a vacuum,

and even time
holds its breath
for our response.

 

it is in that bated place
that we will see small globes of light –
halos behind cloud-cover –
fainting and forming
like a shy dancer,
moving anyway.

 

then,
when words do not come,
and we stand in somber witness
of the damage
and in cessation’s thanks,

a bird may sing,
alight on the upright branches
of fallen trees,
peck at the bark
and preen her wing,

and we exhale.

 

Life therein
begins again.

 

∴

 

 

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