Being mortal, death stalks us
like a silent shadow during the day
and rests under our beds at night.
Like a lamb sleeping
with a freshly fed lion,
we become acclimated
to the beast’s mercy.
As years pass,
doom becomes uneasy
and hungers for us.
There are critical epiphanies,
before death finally feasts
upon our expiration –
when we see its teeth and claws,
its foreboding and longing,
and smell the dampness in its breath:
those near misses
like a bus barreling in front of us.
Fate warns us, “Not yet!”
and we pause
before stepping off the sidewalk.
In our youth,
death watches us with patience,
from a tree branch,
from the blind of tall grass,
from an embankment
as we happily slake
from the stream of life.
For years, death’s pining is muted,
but, as I say, not always.
There are startling instances
when death reveals its nature,
shows us its incisors
and glistening drool.
Such an event occurred to me recently.
Caused all that is innermost
to awaken with alarm;
forced me to review my life’s experiences
with cold-eyed sobriety.
You are the bystander,
the passenger on a train
I grab by the coat lapels
with the urgency of one who knows
he is pursued but
has an urgent, essential message.
The spider of time
is spinning its web
so, I hand you these pages of me,
before I am eaten from inside.
Before I am a husk
animated by the wind.
Before I am
pierced by the porchlight.