This Poem was Submitted By: Carl Osborne On Date: 2000-11-11 12:34:22 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

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A Death

You wept when we spoke of it. There was outside the kitchen window that leaden winter light that just to see it sucks the hope from any living thing, and chills the human warmth of heart and mind. You tell me a young woman has died, a friend of yours, an auto accident. I strike my wise man pose and talk of it from my head: "Certainly Death is no stranger." "We have both of us lost a Dad." "You or I could go at any time." "Death is just a part of life .  .  ." And all the other arrogant trash we use to hide our puzzlement behind. You press against the window with the dullness of the snow reflected in your face and in your eyes. "It isn't right and it isn't fair!" you cry. A cold moon rises and our shadows blend, pooled together at our feet. Silence gathers in the corners, lurks on the walls, waiting. I reach to stroke your shoulder, needing your touch, but draw back, afraid, awed by your wondering grief. You break suddenly from me, open drawers, clatter pans, open packages. I retire to the living room, my special chair, Diet Coke, lights, TV, and one uneasy thought: No, my love, it isn't right and it isn't fair. And no matter how I prate, brightly, of inevitability and hospital beds and God and freezing freeway bridges and primordial fears, in this cold evening with the very sun dying, there are only the old questions yet. And your anger.  And your worthy tears.

Copyright © November 2000 Carl Osborne


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