Category: Poem about Death

Sunsets and Other Dying Words

At times, words seem so incomplete
Leaving us wanting
In ways we cannot describe
Pointing to things not things at all
Within and about us, directions, places with no words
Not now, or ever

Close your eyes
Recall the most beautiful sunset you’ve ever seen
Try your best to describe it—bring it back to life with words
How it became a sudden part of your life
How in between heartbeats
You even mused death also could be beautiful

Words will always be lonely—
Seeking the company of other words
So they won’t die a lonely death
Like souls need bodies to manifest life
Like the sun needs a reflective surface
To paint a sunset, signaling its departure

So why bother, you say
To replay our life experiences
Like some loved old movie
I have a hunch—
We want to hold on, to all of it
The sunset, even our words about death

No Use Hiding in the Darkness

At times we dwell
Where darkness falls and lingers
Places into which our hearts tumble
Like a ball bouncing down the cellar steps

We go there more willingly
Than our self-pity allows us to admit
At times, as easily as our breath erases
All signs of yesterday

Death is one thing—moving on, making room
For new things to be born
It’s a mistake for any of us
To think we’re too good to die

And it’s a mistake to believe
We can escape the inevitable
Hiding in the cellar or attic
Or any dark place in our lives

We fill our lives with action, words, other things
Even the best can’t stop the gift inside us
From moving on, transcending us
Returning always to its giver

Tulsa

Tulsa, a place Mom and Dad lived for a short time
Where Mom died, now twenty-two years ago
Where Oral Roberts preached
And broadcasted his ministry to millions
Including Grandma Secrist
Who faithfully watched his sermons during the 1950s and 1960s
On her old black and white Philco TV
That flickered hope into her life on Moore’s Run—
That sad and forgotten Eastern Ohio holler
Where Mom was born, and
A long way from Tulsa where she died

Tulsa, a place I’ve visited many times
Since Mom’s passing and Dad’s moving
To help the Cherokee Indians
With various plans and studies
Tulsa, a place I left this morning
Troubled about my Dad
Who lay dying in a bed in Tupelo—
Where he has lived out his last sixteen years

All this flashes into my mind
As I sit in seat 16F
Of a Continental flight from Tulsa to Houston
On my way back to Cleveland—
The place I call my home

From my plane window
I watch the sunrise spread across the eastern sky
Searching for answers
To life’s biggest questions—
Those questions each of us faces
In our own way and time

There is no question Dad will die in Tupelo
As Mom died in Tulsa
No real need for an answer to that question
There is no question—
That someday I will die
And so will you
Yet, all this seems so hard to accept
As I look down on Tulsa wondering why

Youth’s Butterfly

Our youth
Like some ineffable butterfly
Flits about in our memories, dreams, reflections
At times, as real as any dream can be
Always, midstream between the familiar and unknown

The older faces about us tell stories
Going past the point butterflies can go
Places no words can reach
Spaces outside the universe we’ve grown to love
Placeless realities no eyes can ever see

Somehow, we start over again before we end
Revisiting, remembering our beginnings
Hoping our memories help us hold on
Somehow anchor us in the shifting sand
Trickling through life’s hourglass

We seem to sense the futility
Of holding onto what only visits
Like the sun in summer
Like the butterfly in the garden
That disappears as quickly as it arrived