O, as effortlessly as life inspired

Doth it leave thy frame,

As all lifeforms once sired

Leave by way they came;

Portentous coalescence

Of loose movements charged,

As riverine flints

So momentously barged—

Ah, meaning must be there inferred

By so mysterious a word,

But, no, you know death,

And the poet’s slant

Prolongs breath

The way that breathing can’t,

As swords are dulled by swing,

Like a bell within a ring,

Seed as concentrated plant;

Hence, what art thou?

Movement defines not life,

Which exercises heaven’s orbs,

Nor existential strife,

As stress the rock absorbs,

Then breaks in tidal energy,

Which transfers stone to stone,

Some residing within thee,

Trapped within thy bone,

Released with its own crack,

Not spiritous energy—

No lifeforce others lack—

All wave and no sea;

So, what words can I offer thee of death

Inarticulable by thine own breath?

Perhaps placation in comradery,

Knowing I will die as thee—

Leaves upon a river course

Looping back unto its source,

Flowing eternally.

Ah, its description always triter

Than what’s described,

Befitting too well subjects of poetry,

And apt of distraction in abstraction,

As too much wind for the sail,

Which, in needing of but a whisper breeze,

Is wrecked ashore in zealous zephyr

Of he who quills tranquil medicament

In verbose inconspicuity,

As elucidation of opaque quandary

Muddles the declaration,

For is death not a question

Yielding so simple an answer

To so problematic a result?

You once were mobile,

Now you are still;

You once were fed,

Now you will feed;

You once were alive,

Now you are dead.

Perhaps the dilemma of describing death

Is that it needs no description,

As written into our bones,

Doth we live knowing life’s finality,

At times so restless and defiant

As to suppose posthumous vivacity;

Yet, the restive, unmoving graves

Evidence only the quieting of personality,

Rustling only in life’s transference.

Friend, comrade, you will die,

As will I… as will I,

So, while you breathe,

Be no less charitable

As thee will be in death,

Granting life to the moribund mortals,

Always precipitous no matter the longevity;

I can advise and expound only thus:

Accept ineluctable progression,

For thou would die without death.

-Poyetikos