Psalm of Death

Death,

Such a paradox you are;

Like Rappacini's daughter;

So beautiful to the sight,

But deadly to the touch.

And you, Life?

You are poisoned honey;

Tainted combs hung high up in a tree.

Is it not enough for you,

That we must scramble and climb to reach you?

But you must make every delicious taste

Speed us closer to your brother.

O Death, a mosquito you are!

Ever silent and swift,

Always noticed too late;

Drinking our life blood and leaving disease.

O Life,

You thrive in the rays of the sunshine,

Like a luscious garden melon,

Bursting in the heat,

Tossing your numbers to the soil from the ripe of their fruit.

O Death,

You are everywhere;

You are sternums cracked on sterile tables;

The latex fingers that caress and massage.

You are urine-soaked inmates restrained to their mattresses;

The shuffling psychotics in worn, padded cells.

You are memory lapses of liver-spotted housewives;

The ovens left on and the dogs gone unfed.

You are tiny invaders set free in their passion;

The fluids infected that course through their veins.

You are the interloping growths of the body;

The unseemly masses that feed and will spread.

You are the white cells, resentful and angry;

Suicidal nuclei, turned traitor in the night.

Invasive terminations now seemly and proper;

The young girls in stirrups, their legs opened wide.

You are steel shattering impacts on interstate concrete;

The shards of flesh suspended from spider-webbed glass.

You are frightened children huddled there under desktops;

Their hushed and horrored hiding from disenchanted friends.

And Life?

Is not life all these things?

Is she not the pretty flower;

Unfolding her petals through the years

'Tis she ruptures in bloom and falls,

Dried like a scab, to the dust.

Is it not Life that brings the barren womb?

The broken bones,

The shattered homes,

The rare disease?

Is she not kin to bloody war?

The overdose,

The comatose,

The unseen viral breeze?

And I realize, Death,

That you are the doorway to Forever.

Like Dante's gateway;

Only here we cannot abandon hope,

But must clutch it to our breasts in quiet desperation.

And Life, then?

True life resides beyond you.

Beyond your portal where the master of the house prepares for his return.

Where the warmth of love and glory is fused,

Mingling together to soothe Life’s icy touch.

For even as her icicles puncture my flesh,

I know that the door shall open,

And her grip will melt into cool water in the sunshine;

Where there is no fear,

No pain,

No nausea,

And no life;

No life as we know it on this suffering of earth.

And I realize for once,

O Death,

You dusty, dreamless sleep;

You debt we must pay;

You tribute unto nature;

You downward path;

You crown of life;

You awfully big adventure.

You, O Death —

You are the most beautiful

Thing

In life.