Death

Death

I shouted your name
from the crest of the hill,
wanting to destroy you
claw your eyes out
disembowel your very essence.
Like a lion attacking a gazelle
I wanted to devour any power you wielded to further destroy.

But my bellow brought
the wind rushing up the hillside
untamed and wild,
shadowing my echo.
At my feet lady slippers dipped their heads
exactly where they had bloomed the year before.
Somewhere in the sea below I knew
an amoeba simply divided into two.

All this transformation
where I had desired only annihilation.

I see now that you are not the ruler,
not the test we always fail.
You provide no “lesson,”
no inner wisdom of your own.
You are in fact the messenger,
perhaps a dove,
the mysterious courier who carries our essence
over the ridge
across the ocean
into the mysterious other world
which we simply cannot yet see.