Poetry Month 2023 Post #7: “Death”

April is #NationalPoetryMonth and I am posting a Poem-A-Day.  In my faith tradition, today is a day of remembering the story of Jesus’ execution by the Roman government. So, death is what we sit with today.  I wrote this poem this past Fall.

Death 

Death is not a moment
she is a field, a reverse force
They are a part of life
Always in conversation
with breath, with beating heart
Death is not a stop or a start
He hovers, he waits, he meanders
Death titrates and gyrates
A centrifuge, a deluge
a trickle of loss, of letting go
They react and respond
as mystery, as mercy,
as tragedy, as cruelty.
Death is relationship, death is
cycling life, death is undaunting,
haunting, wanting our
resistance, and finally seeking
our consent—they do not
require that we say yes,
There is never a way to say
no. Her wisdom teaches
us, ushers us, invites us
to feel alive—no one else
can make us feel our life
like death.