i have seen death before
and he is dark and he is cruel
his claws are painful, his presence inevitable,
slowly or quickly he comes for us all
he leaves more damage than he creates
but on days like today, i admire death
and the way these leaves, once green and fresh,
then vibrant and yellow, now brittle and orange,
dance to the ground to fall at his feet.
the dry, golden grass is dying too,
and the sunlight is fading, fading
f
a
d
i
n
g.
Death has stripped the trees bare,
and they shake like skeletons.
Death has come to sing the world to sleep,
and under his lullaby the sunlight falls,
the air grows cold,
and the creatures start to slumber.
He breathes over the mountains,
and the tamaracks turn yellow,
He calls for the sun and she slowly sets
into a sea of fuchsia and lavender clouds,
telling me goodbye as she slips behind the trees…
Jesus stands beside me as I watch his world die,
so peacefully and gracefully every Fall,
he offers me his nail-pierced hand,
“Are you ready my child, are you ready too?”
I look at these leaves, this sunset, this world,
then up at my Savior, and the scars on his hands,
things grow more beautiful, right as they die.
The rest of the world fights to gloat and glow,
during the longest days under a hot summer sun-
But I don’t anymore. I don’t. I don’t.
I watch a leaf fall, and I ache to be like it,
surrendering to a will that is greater than it’s own.
“Yes Lord, ” I tell him, ” I’m ready to die.”
poems.
