Did it open quietly in the night so that the soul slipped easily away,

Moving on towards the white light without fear or doubt?

Did the door open full and wide with a vacuum-pulling roar,

Sucking the unwilling into its vortex, the victim holding on to life,

No match for death’s firm grip?

Did the door creak and warn, so that humans oiled the works,

And the warning signs were no longer heard?

Death arrived anyway in his own good time.

Did Death open the door an inch to be rudely rebuked

With a slam, so that when Death returned,

He returned with a cruelty of diminishment, taking

Pride and dignity before taking the life?

Death’s door. It is mankind’s fate to walk through it,

Alone, naked as the day we were born. Each of us will enter.

Some will embrace death. Some will fight, battle, and rage.

Death does not care, not a fig, about attitude.

He will win in the end.

So it is written. So it goes.