Death Begs No.

A palm is put up, that no pity could make it through

“How can you console her knowing death is afraid of you?”

I did not compose these words, yet they are mine

Uttered in a dream, one echoing line

Spoken by Death herself, while she holds a girl’s hand

She looks only twelve, and the child smaller stands

An audience watches, a statement, a show

To a pit at the bottom the children all go

The sand does not sort them by age or by name

They fall, listless, down, to be buried the same

Death never asked us for these bodies, so small

What she asks is a question, overworked and appalled

“I am but a reaper, a guideman, a door

What terrors are you who keep sending me more?”

So her palm is an army that will not make way for you

“How can you console her knowing Death is afraid of you?”

How can we console her, us watching the news

With our guns in the closet we’ve never had to use?

It was not our bullets that broke through her chest

But we fought for the weapon that laid her to rest

How can you console her, you preachers who pray

When you say that the young must retrieve those astray?

How can you tell a child, while wishing them well

That their weakness and fear sends their playmates to hell?

Were none of us sacred before we were grown?

Are none of them sacred now, not on their own?

Is innocence meaningless, the perfect white page

That we write on and fight on, turn black as our rage?

Are they pawns? Are they dough? To be molded and used,

Or abused, until like us they grow? Death begs no.