Aug 29, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Learning Beyond
©August 29th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Don’t take me away!
She cries to Death
Who comes quietly
And waits in shadow.
And Death asks in a voice
As dry as deserts:
Why do you seek to stay?
And she replies,
With thirst in her throat:
There is much to learn
And I’m not done
This life still calls.
Death’s voice is warm
Caressing her like a lover,
As he replies:
You cannot stay.
Your time is up.
Why prolong misery?
It’s peaceful out there
Where I’ll take you.
Come. Come. Come.
With honeyed voice,
He opens his arms in invitation.
She gasps. His cloak is endless.
Shadowy shapes sweep across
Moving tapestries, skulls
With wine and roses,
Ancient stories full of blood
Destruction and endings,
And creation and infinity, and
Songs like childhood’s end.
Beauty like sunlight folded
Into itself, over and over.
Stars winking out, one by one,
Spiraling into darkness.
And she is impelled
By a strange new thirst
She wants to know.
She has to know
What lies in the folds
Of that cloak.
Death speaks again, his voice hard:
You have no choice.
She smiles.
I do.
She steps forward, lithe and young
Her laughter shakes the air
Like a girl shaking water
From her hair, as she flings
It away from her drowning face.
Death gazes at her now,
Spellbound, in love.
Throws wide his cloak
She slips into its folds,
And they swirl away.
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