The Departed

Nothing but death Shall judge me a failure
And make my wedding dress into winding sheets
As I was created without a meaning
Until I was born& decided what I should mean.
And not until death can I say you were my great love
As great as my grandfather loved my grandmother
Until he met his end & became what he was working toward.
In life we are but actions:
A child sitting, a man working
A novice writing,
A lover happy, a brother so angry...

Until we are all these things;
these separate moments that impress on the memory
Once the final breath billows out of the soul
Like cigarette smoke from fastidious throats.
Nothing but death shall make me beautiful,
Until I have had a lifetime
To know what beauty is
&see in myself those subtle moments
Where the aged are near to death
And their pearlized eyes smiled,
Like sinewy necks cut from ear to ear.
With knowledge that they would soon become…
something that I was born to become.
That I long to become:
The departed.