Tag Archives: mortality

Milk

“He’s dead”
She said.
What to say?
Meaningless words
Of sympathy, by her probably only half heard
While thinking “I must get away,
The shop will soon close
And heaven knows
I am out of milk. Well nearly so.
Poor lady how will she go
On without him?”
A short walk and I am in
The shop where once they together went
And spent notes that crumble into dust.

Reaper

Sitting in a field
I watch the grain yield
To the fickle
Sickle
That momentarily spares a stalk
As onward the reaper doth walk.

When he does approach
Will I reproach
Him and say,
“‘Tis not my day
To die
For the birds fly
In a cloudless sky.
I would gather wild flowers to my breast.
Surely ‘tis not time to rest?
Reaper go your way
For I feign would play
Another hour under the sun”.

Will he reply,
“All things must die.
You have had your fun.
Did you not see time, as the river run
Away?
Cease your play.
Face it like a man, for you have debts to pay”.

The Girl And The Oak

A girl passing through the wood
For a moment stood
Under an ancient oak.
The tree spoke.
“I have seen kingdoms rise and fall
And my branches have decked many a bridal hall.
But kings and lovers are all now dead”.
She heard not the words said
For earplugs fed
Pop music into her head.
Taking a knife she carved, “Lucy loves Tom”
Then, without a backward glance, she was gone.

Ere We Die

On seeing the stormy sky
The poet thinks “man must die”.
He sees the young girl bloom
And says “she is destined for the tomb”.
Oh let us gather wild flowers
And not waste our powers
Trapped in ivory towers.
Beware the scholar’s domed head
For we are soon dead.
May our spirit fly
Ere we die
And are lost in endless sky.