There is no wonder in it.

There is no wonder in it.

A straight talker

Might be respected

But has few friends

Directness can be construed as rude

I am never sure

About the truth of things

So much of what I encounter

Is subject to interpretation

Only the solidity

Of mother earth

The certainty of death

The progress of life

In one direction

The inevitability

Of loss

The loosening of ties

The mental slippage

The brutality of senility

Even though scientists

Research ways to end the ageing process

It seems upside-down

To want the kudos of wisdom

Without the experience

Of an approaching cataclysm

To wet the whistle

Perhaps I am old enough

To have established new relationships

But I am rarely a church mouse

Openly resistant

If I suspect the motive

Of a bully

The prattler with

A spiteful mouth

Full of junk

The aggravators who

Would rig a noose

The agitators

Who would pull the rope

Break the truce

We all live through

To create our little piece of heaven

An enclave

By a babbling brook

A little nook

Beneath a shady tree

Without the shadow of death

Looming over

The picnic basket.

Perhaps it is a foolish dream

When death is no stranger

To us all

Even though we shut it out

As best we can

It will come calling

The chill of it

Squeezing the life out of a

Crowded room

The precision of its touch

Navigating a course

Between warm bodies

Rubbing up against each other

The wrong way

Death makes its choice

And then slides out

From one borrowed soul

To the next.

Even as the Cherry trees blossom

The petals

Blow in the wind

Hungry Swallows duck and dive

Dragonflies thrive

Pretty as a picture

For the good of all

In the rough and tumble

The reckless jumble

Of a full life well lived

There is death.