O Death, Thou Art Mild
O Death, Thou Art Mild
(sustaining light of invisible sparks)
A candle leans
where shadows softly creep,
Its flame whispers secrets
the dark must keep;
It shivers at
the brush of lightest air,
Like laughter caught
in corners, unaware.
I rest my fingertip
against the glass,
Warm—yielding—pulsing
with what I cannot grasp;
Within the veins,
neurons flare and gleam,
A choir of sparks
that move like a dream.
Across the table,
a glance is lightly thrown,
A cat stretches, yawns,
and claims its own;
Even the small,
the fleeting, speaks the truth:
Energy endures
beyond the bloom of youth.
The flame leans forward,
flickers, bends, then stills,
No taller than a thought,
yet vast as hills;
Its trembling light
pervades the quiet air,
And something in me
stands aware, laid bare.
O foolish Death—
though thou barest sharpest tooth,
And rend’st the flesh
as though all being lay uncouth;
Still I stand amazed,
not defiant, but made mild,
Knowing myself an airy thing,
ethereal—unbitten, undefiled;
No canine of oblivion
may bruise what has no bone,
Nor tear the breath
that was never alone.
Each heartbeat, neuron, breath,
and whispered sound
Moves onward, folded
in the world profound;
A brush of sleeve,
a glance, a laugh half-shared—
These tiny sparks
reveal the life we dared;
The vast is mirrored
in such human ways,
Where eternity resides
in ordinary days.
Folded, folded—
currents thread unseen,
Through fingertip, through gaze,
through morning green;
All that flickers,
all that lives, flows on and through,
And life persists
in subtle acts we do.
So here I stand,
while candlelight persists,
Its tiny flame
a witness to the tryst—
Of mortal fear
and endless energy—
And in that quiet, fleeting moment…
I am free.
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