Five Little Poems of Death
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
Look around—say it:
“Death is here.” Nothing
better to strengthen
the heart. Make a gesture
as if in protest? Close the door
and find something to tie
it fast? Try untying the ribbon
from your hair. Death’s robes
are not folds of dark upon dark.
They are embroidered with roses,
and light as air.
***
During the night, death, like
the smell of bread and cornfields
loosens itself from the trees,
descends into the bright morning, gently
apologizes for any trouble it may have
caused, and then changes the fatiguing
mind and love’s special grief,
into its own nourishment
for the long journey home.
***
Death is homeless–
afoot in the world,
trying to missionize
anyone. A homeless
death is chaos, relentless
in trying to enter
our story, with the hope
that we are just as lost
as they are.
***
Be mindful, they say–missing the obvious–
an overture gone profoundly wrong.
Just know they have never left the city even once.
Death is in our skin, and whatever goes missing
when we focus the breath will return found–our love of stuff,
our local ancestry of what may have once been called home.
***
What have I done? This ecological truth,
the footprints, this damage control,
this ragged edge of being alive.
In some corner of myself the belligerent
wound will not scab—the debt I owe
to my children and grandchildren
beyond where I stand.
***