When the Day Is Clear

It is on a day when the morning is clear and clean
with sunlight falling unfiltered onto green earth,
and especially on trees bursting with rising sap,
that I see my death ahead like a black hole in space
waiting to suck me in and erase the evidence
of my existence in the universe.
Gone, finished, done with like used toilet paper
with no reason for further consideration of any kind
is the way it will be handled by the living,
which is the way it should be.

But until it’s time to step to the edge
and slide away never to be seen again,
I want the sunlight to fall full force on me,
to make me glow like new leaves on the sweetgum tree,
to turn me up and on to every breeze that passes,
to draw the sap up again and again
so no spring, summer, autumn or winter is wasted on me.
I want to wake every morning with the expectation
that a friend will meet me in the early light,
perhaps beside the beach
where we can walk happy dogs together
and talk of life and love.

Through time and space I move
unafraid of the blackness that waits for me,
that blackness which makes more brilliant the light
and butterflies and mocking birds
which I can see and hear and feel today.
I manage to avoid the hole
because I know it’s there.
Death is something I can see ahead.
It’s the hidden traps that unnerve me.