Death

3 Pages 627 Words

Fall is Death

The sky is the color of hard gray stone
Death’s hand is stretching out
Birds and animals awake with a shock
Frost dances in the dawn

In the high empty sky, the cold sun shines
With fires that forget to warm
But the chill wind burns with a stinging bite
The trees blaze with cold flame

The sun is buried in the high, dead hills
She dies there in fire and smoke
The heartbeat of the earth slows down and fades
Life is swallowed up in the dusk

The birds of the air have gone over the clouds
The beasts of the forest sleep
And the small creeping things that live in the earth
Lie slain by the breath of the night

Now white light and ice shine high in the sky
Death’s hand is squeezing hard
Birds and animals cower and hide
And slowly, each leaf
Falls




And I Walked Onto the Battlefield

And I walked onto the battlefield.
I marched between the lines
as bullets whipped by and shells exploded.
I halted in the midst of fierce combat.
There was a cool gentle breeze.

And I opened my trench coat.
Cradled there, within my right arm, the tiniest of forms
barely eight months amongst our world.

And I waited with her there.
Guns, and machines, all paused in their barrage,
as each in time spotted the child,
fell silent until only the breeze spoke.
And I lifted her aloft.
Her voice came gentle, at once quiet
but gaining volume, gaining strength, gaining light
until the battlefield rang with song as my fingers caressed her..

For she laughed.

As soldiers holding guns,
from side to side, whipped their heads up.

For she laughed louder.

As soldiers in trenches,
from side to side, looked up at her, eyes lit wide.

For she laughed louder still

And each men, at once heavy, but lighter
lighter in futility, lighter in hope
together the soldiers laughed too.
For they remembered their childhood
and had discovered the child within themselves.

And then one by one, they tur...