Stand before me.
If you let me,
I will tell you what it feels like to age.
Not only will I show you
how flesh looses elasticity,
how lines progress to sags,
I will show you how
doubt creeps into the heart
that come to the waist.
It is only,
it is only,
it is only from the darkness
that there can be light.
It is only from the night
that there may be a new day
when I may don
my golden tunic and my vermilion sash,
take out my sword and black beaver hat
to tell you
Look closely at the wrinkles on my hands.
These will be your wrinkles one day.
Look carefully at the wattles at my throat.
These will follow you into your life one day.
It is only because I have faced
the fear and the fact that
life comes to an end
that I may whisper to you,
Come closer
and you will feel
the approach of your last breath.
Come closer and
you will feel the gasp of fear
as the darkness takes over
and the possibility of light
recedes, like the fading daylight
as I put my brush to the pallet,
and the brush to the canvas,
to tell you, not reassuringly
that it feels like a kind of living hell
to see the ones you have loved
die before you,
to see that all you have accumulated as bounty
is dispersed,
but also to tell you that
for all the fears and pains,
you must stand before me
and quiet your mind,
and listen
as my breath fades from a rattle into
the Endless Silence
Where I pray there is Light.
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