Death

Death Fall is Death The sky is the color of hard gray stone Death’s hand is stretching out Birds and animals awake with a shock Frost dances in the dawn In the high empty sky, the cold sun shines With fires that forget to warm But the chill wind burns with a stinging bite The trees blaze with cold flame The sun is buried in the high, dead hills She dies there in fire and smoke The heartbeat of the earth slows down and fades Life is swallowed up in the dusk The birds of the air have gone over the clouds The beasts of the forest sleep And the small creeping things that live in the earth Lie slain by the breath of the night Now white light and ice shine high in the sky Death’s hand is squeezing hard Birds and animals cower and hide And slowly, each leaf Falls And I Walked Onto the Battlefield And I walked onto the battlefield. I marched between the lines as bullets whipped by and shells exploded. I halted in the midst of fierce combat. There was a cool gentle breeze. And I opened my trench coat. Cradled there, within my right arm, the tiniest of forms barely eight months amongst our world. And I waited with her there. Guns, and machines, all paused in their barrage, as each in time laughed, back, side, battlefield, within, turned, soldiers, live, lighter, hole, grave, gaining, each, dig, dead, bones, whipped, walked, upon, until, through, song, silence, out, onto, one, once, louder, lost, light, lifeless, lie, know, hand, guns