Sunday, January 18, 2015

Life and Death: Short Piece

Life and Death: Short Piece

by Armando Ortiz


Yes, we all die

but that doesn’t answer the question

as to why.


Into this confusion we are born,

and just when we thought that this fusion,

of love and nature could endure,

your neighbor dies and

souls begin to knock on our door.


We end up visiting the hills where people,

still cold and stiff, are laid to rest

and every time we return, it seems that life’s

duress reveals its empty self in the shape of death,

where memory can no longer regress to that time when

lawns were used to play ball, and trees blanketed

us with that cool shade.


No one knows the suffering of others.

we walk kilometers forgetting that there are those,

who’ve trampled through the heat of humanity,

walked through valleys of glowing embers and silently

swallowed the bitter drink of life.


Broken remain those who hang from trees and tattered are

the happy times that we barely reclaim, yet

there is no prejudice with life and death.


It’s the stuff in between that stirs waters,

that creates hurricanes and tsunamis

of labels and names, and

painful experience.


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