I Pray You Leave Us Gently

A news response poem

A gentle death. Taken in the night,
in a deep sleep, slipping away 
in a warm haze, song of crickets 
and bullfrogs vibrating in your ears 
as you drift off. This is what I wish
for you, a painless crossing. Not 
to feel the heat of wildfires, the panic
of flood waters, the sharp shock 
of a drone attack. Not to be blindsided
by an accident, feel the devastation 
of disease or decay day after day. 

Because I loved you, I wished you 
a gentle life. But only flowers unfold 
gracefully, wither reliably. You came 
into this world in a fog of labor, crying 
and gasping, the passage a torment. 
We live as we enter: struggling, grabbing 
at happiness, gulping lungfuls of air 
and affection. Who among us 
can prevent hurt, defy nature’s fury? 
You had your share of sorrow, injustice, 
a jagged journey of joy and injury. 
Who knows how we will end, but even 
the easy deaths I've witnessed go hard 
in the last moments, in a violent rush 
of breath, a rattle before stillness.

But still, I pray you leave us gently, 
carried on a soft breeze after dusk, 
moving lightly in shadow, breathing 
the roundness of the moon, smelling 
the ripeness of the cornfields, perfume 
of the phlox in the yard, the warmth 
of care on your skin, in your bones, 
erasing the suffering, delivering you 
delicately, as a petal falls, slowly,
silently to the ground, a whisper, 
imperceptible and gone. This 
is what I wish for you.

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Note: Many ask what inspires various poems. This poem was prompted by this week's news of tragic deaths in the fires in Maui and drone strikes in Ukraine which reminded me of many recent losses. It was not written with just one person in mind, but for those I love in general. 

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