Tag Archives: Fear of Death

A Final Severance

18 Tuesday Jun 2019

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Sentient soul, to sentient soul,
he realized her panic
when he came barreling
around the corner; sundown,
and their eyes met
for just that second,
she decided to run.
He’d forgot to honk his horn,
thought she’d made it,
then the thud,
like the snap of twig,
a broken limb,
the doe, three-legged,
ran down the ravine.
He was amazed at her speed,
dismayed by his deed,
that couldn’t be undone,
or lightened,
or made right.
In fact, he knew
there was nothing left
except she would die.
He wondered at that,
and how death arrives
when we least expect,
and then, the frantic,
lonesome search for a quiet place
to lay your broken body down,
and the terrible waiting:
last fear, last tight breath,
a final severance from this world
on what had been a beautiful night.

New Soul

12 Friday Apr 2019

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Some, come into the world as old souls,
like they’ve been here a hundred times,
a bit weary, wise, or jaded, made cautious
by pain & an understanding of human hearts.
But not my son, whose eyes saw the earth
as if he, and it, were just created.

Yes, from first breath he was a wanderer,
like his father in his lust for the world,
possibilities stretched out before him,
no person stranger, no place strange,
a modern day viking making his way
across an infinite, angry sea, with no map.

Unless, music is a map. Song after song,
his heart in waves of hard-plucked strings.
He sang loud, and I wondered how
he could pour himself out in front of crowds.
I see him, even now, upon the ocean,
his wooden ship, the waves, the sails.

The Breathing

09 Tuesday Oct 2018

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There is a fine line,

so skinny, so fragile;

what is,

on the other side,

breathing hard.

A horse can hear,

a deer can hear it,

but we do not,

and we live, mostly,

without fear.

Recently, the paths diverged:

what should have been,

but wasn’t,

what was,

but shouldn’t have been,

and I wonder

if those two ways,

continue in different spheres.

I  hear their breathing,

each year, stronger,

and something, like love,

pulling me there.

What is time,

but a rotation under the sun,

a perception of what has been,

a perception of moving

toward what is to come.

 

 

 

Room 19, Code Blue

25 Thursday Sep 2014

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Immediate resuscitation required.
Sorrow begins in the pharynx,
Descends to the heart and lungs,
Or so you think, because it hurts,
Then, you’re bawling.
You’re sure they announced,
Room nineteen, Code Blue,
Watched enough ER to know
He must be dead or dying.
But then you think,
Because you can’t believe,
Really, such tragedies happen to yours,
Maybe Code Blue means something else,
Like, Get here fast and help,
And, as you start to console yourself,
Convince yourself you were wrong,
The nurse returns to where you sit,
Tells you it was a different Room 19,
A different person in Code Blue,
And you’re relieved,
Utterly relieved, and free.
Until today,
When you begin to wonder
If someday, someone will be relieved
You’re the one in Room 19, Code Blue,
Rather than their own,
Precious, little boy.