Ode To Death By Daud Kamal

Ode To Death

An Ode To Death
Your ode to death is in the lifting of a single eyebrow. Lift it and see. (Conrad Aiken)

Death is more than certain, says e.e Cummings,

But the clocks go on ticking as before

And in every particle of carbon dust

There lives a diamond dream

How many galaxies yet to be explored-

How many seeds in the pomegranate of time?

The pine tree blasted by last year's Thunderbolt

And the burn out match stick in my ashtray

Look so terribly alike

I have sat by your bedside and felt

Your sinking pulse. Are the hair and bones

Really indestructible and how long

Does it take for the eyes

To dissolve in the grave?

Two streams mingle in a forgotten river.

Between the eye and the tear

There is the archipelago of naked rocks

Only sleep and silence there-

No anchorage for grief.

I, too, have wandered in a forest of symbols

And clutched at the harlots of memory.

I have seen the "stars plummet to their dark addresses"

I have felt your absence around my neck

But let bygones be bygones

Who was the deceiver and who the deceived

Was I on a floating island

And were you on the shore?

Which one of us moved away?

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Written by Daud Kamal.