How Will You Take Me? I ask Death
©June 21st, 2021
By Vijaya Sundaram
Sometimes, when my brain is idle,
I let Death step in.
We sit together on the curb, as
Trees wave gently overhead,
Traffic moving like molasses
At rush hour.
A man and his son walk by,
Wave at me. I wave back.
The child has Down’s –
I see them all the time,
The good father, the sweet son.
The sun sets.
Death and I talk, looking ahead.
I bend to pick dandelions, or watch
Air eddy around my ankles.
We talk of this and that, but mostly,
It’s only my voice I hear
Loud in my empty head.
Death is quiet, for she listens,
Always, and waits, always.
I ask, “How will you take me?”
She lets the question sit.
I answer myself.
“Perhaps, you’ll waft me upwards in a swirl
Of colorful scarves, like that girl
In that book whose name I’ll forget
At the moment of my death?”
Death stays silent. We watch cars
Rolling along rush-hour highways,
Implacable and inevitable, metal
Things that carry destruction.
“Will you come and squeeze air
Out of faltering lungs, when my time
Goes down, down, down the hourglass?”
Death stays silent. We watch birds
Settling on trees, the sound
Of stridulating crickets
Settling like a haze over the land.
“Will I fall down, down, down,
For nine days and nine nights?”
Death stays silent.
The moon
Rises slowly, pearlescent,
Beaming, a face, an eye on us.
“Will I go to sleep, dream a dream
Of rowing down a stream,
And never wake up?”
“Will a fever rage through the land
And suck me in its wildfire?
Death stays silent.
I sense a weariness, or perhaps,
A heavy disinclination
To commit to anything.
She will not commit,
Because she does not know.
“Will I fall into a volcano,
Get sucked into the center of the earth?”
“Will I decide to go deep sea diving,
And let a deep, deep trench beckon to me?”
“Will I …”
Death sighs.
I’m too garrulous.
I fall silent. She murmurs.
I turn, look, entranced.
Her eyes like endless night,
Glisten with unknown stars.
I could go now, I think.
Then, I’ll know the ending.
But I know I won’t.
Time trickles through. The ground
Feels closer, gravity reaching up for me.
There is time, still – perhaps?
“I cannot wait. I need to turn
To the last page!” I blurt out.
I need to know the end of the story,
So I can work my way back to the start,
And marvel at the meandering plot-line,
The thickening of character,
The coalescing of theme,
If there be any.
“It’s all about how one gets there!
” I shout.
“I don’t care about message.
I care about method.”
Death smiles into her sleeve,
The air stirs, the trees bend closer,
And a soughing sound moves
Across the moonlit June sky.
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