On My First Real Encounter with Death (Very Young)
In my youth I saw a bird’s ravished body
Lying in the silence of a furrow
Its auburn feathers were wilted and shoddy
And ants stripped its flesh and belly thorough
Strange … so strange imagining this bird to be
To have once ascended the vaulted blue
To have woven music in the old oak tree
Or to have plucked from grass the morning dew
And now, alas … struck down from the sky it flew
This bird, this tiny little creature lies
Displaying a sure message in open view
That whatever comes to live also dies
In the quietude of that lonely meeting
I marveled dreadfully that this should be
That death swallows life, and that life is fleeting
And that all will succumb …
… including me
-jwm
