A Death Poem

Death has been on my mind lately because there’s been a lot of it, some of it personal, some of it the public figure variety, most recently that of Neil Peart of Rush who I’d seen perform live numerous times.  The outer circles insulating my charmed life have been breached by the passing of those around the same age as me or just a few years down the line, so mortality has taken on new resonance.  I’m not depressed about it nor am I fatalistic, but I can’t pretend it’s not there.  It has to be reckoned with.  So, time for some poetry!

WHEN DEATH IS ALL AROUND

When death is all around
not even breath can be assumed.
Hyper-conscious.  Present. Aware.
It’s what you’ve been aiming for all along.
Yet the privilege shared by
witnessing others’ passing
falls flat upon weary ears
like a stone on the sunken earth.
Whether it’s “wrapped in the cradle of His bosom”
or “a dot of light in the sky’s sphere,”
there is no comfort in words of comfort.
Because lately it’s been friends
and friends of friends,
and mothers and lovers and brothers and sons,
wives and husbands
and old acquaintances.
No, not even breath can be assumed,
nor the sunrise,
nor lilac’s bloom,
nor pangs of hunger,
nor sated desires,
nor sacred moments.
For in another’s absence 
beckon those final empty seconds,
when all we hold dear
will be loosed into the ether
of God’s hollow embrace.