372
another friend of a friend
diagnosed with cancer
is the sky big enough
to hold all these souls
in flight

371
home sick
more practice
dying


*********

home sick
another dress
rehearsal

370
eyes closed
departing
New Year's Eve

369
on second thought
I'd rather die the way I lived
a little crooked

369
on second thought
I'd rather die the way I lived
a little crooked

368
sucking a lollipop
you still don't get it
we're all going to die

367
my future
in the eye
of the potato

366
octopus
I already know
the way home

365
guess what
I'm gearing up to go
gentle into the night

~ not after Dylan Thomas

364
were I not bald
I too would shake my white locks
at the runaway sun

~ after Walt Whitman

363
sittingtodie

362
yes (i) (k)now death

361
Haiku poet Andrea Grillo sent two death awareness haiku, which I would like to share with readers. The first may have originally appeared in Hummingbird, though publication credit is not currently available. The second poem is unpublished.

please
scatter my ashes
in a summer garden
as daylight ebbs
and colors ripen


********


when
does summer really end?
my garden
deepens with each dusk
gold and russet highlights

360
Haiku poet Donna Fleischer sent the following death awareness poem that first appeared in South by Southeast, 18:1, 2010:

a stone
between my dead
& fading footsteps

Thank you, Donna, for sharing your poem. I find myself glancing back at my own footsteps, wondering which have died and which are fading. I want to know something more about this stone. . . where did it come from and what is its texture, composition? Has it been set into place between these footsteps?

359
hesitating
the grim reaper at the door
All Souls' Day

358
under
that
stone
my
future

358
my future
under that
stone

357
death brooking
no questions
no answers

356
hooting owl departure time

355
picture window
you won't find me
on either side

354
thunder I'm gone

353
cloudless sky
trying to imagine a world
w/o her. . . or me

352
rainy day bookshop--
someday somebody will be
browsing through my books

351
after the bone shop
I thank God I won't
last forever

350
March funeral
comes and goes
so do we

349
57 years ago
death put a bounty
on my head

348
guess what
obladi oblada
life goes on

347
nothing running
close behind
my last breath

346
my shadow still
a little ahead of
my last breath

345
trying patiently
to pencil in
my death day

344
back of the house
that's where death
rooms for now

343
the cookie crumbles
& so does
everything else

342
living will
it too depends on
my breath

341
death
I've got you
under my skin

340
piece of cake
that's what mom tells me
about dying

339
black is black
what else is there
to know about death

338
one breath poem
that's all I got
left in me

337
death. . .
please don't leave me
hanging

336
this death--
another leaf from
nature's thriller

335
falling leaves
I want to know
who teaches them

**********

falling leaves
take me to
your mentor

334
thinking of death
I turn on
the white noise machine

333
through that portal
death and
whatever else

332
sun speckled dust
on the dresser, along the shelf
I am made of dust

331
indigo night
I follow the cricket's song
down down down

330
September night
a cricket's song
of no birth, no death

329
a single raindrop
in a single puddle
evaporating

329
you
have
ques
tions?

death
has

an
swers

328
my lips to
the fading rose
another petal falls

327
climb in the box
close the lid and
dream away

326
fluttering away
my past and
the rest of me

325
Indian summer day
not protesting
the dying of the light

324
more grass clippings
but but I'm not ready
to be mulched

323
full
moon
cash
me
out

322
time was then wasn't

321
death--
one thing only
surrender

death
if you've learned to surrender
you're good

320
it brooks no resistance death

319
it's in the undertow death

318
so many stars
that treasure you were looking for
was you

317
only one way to go
disappearing into thin air

316
my Original Face
before my parents were born?
the same as yours

315
my death
the one and only
original act

314
lightning fast
that's how quick
the chipmunk meets fate

313
see that fog?
it's the color of
death

312
to die. . .
it feels so. . . .
glacial

311
how do I die
let me count
the ways

310
I waited. . .
and waited. . .
til I expired

309
today's reader
tomorrow's subject
obituary page

308
those small puddles
you saw disappear
that was us

307
breath by breath
being with what is
and isn't

breath by breath
being with what is
and beyond

306
rare June rain
I was all ready to complain, then
realized I'm alive

305
you don't have to
be dead to enjoy it
cemetery stillness

304
sea shell
I too could be buried
for a billion years

303
under a red sky
the last traces of woodsmoke
disappear

302
death meditation
the last breath
doesn't count

301
flowering weed
can't I just slip through
that crack in the concrete

300
loud thunder
I hold my breath
death does the same

299
today
those circling vultures
can fly me home

298
no bluer sky this dying day

297
one foot in the grave
one foot in
Father's Day

296
imagine
casket
there's no heaven
lowered
I wonder if you can
into the ground

295
I will lay me down
where the butterfly stops
Father's Day

294
sorting through
the tin of rusted nails
last will & testament

293
howling winds
never question a dying man
whispers the dying man

292
in my dream
I have two choices
live or die

291
dried out lily
the little I know
about death

290
I have been reading The Inevitable, a collection of essays by writers who confront death; it is edited by David Shields and Bradford Morrow. I wish to share a few quotes from the book, which grabbed my attention.

In death, I want to be air moving through air--nothing through nothing--forever changing and unchanged.

Everything we say about death is actually about life.

-- Kyoki Mori, "Between the Forest and the Well: Notes on Death," p. 45

Of death, mortals are absolutely ignorant. The dead, fortunately, are beyond caring.

-- Lynne Tillman, "The Final Plot," p. 280

How each morning, as you rise from your bed, the belief hums through your head that you are going to die, going to die,
going to die, yes, surely, no doubt about it, but not today--an observation that will remain correct every morning of your life, except one, because--
Because--
To hope, E. M. Cioran once wrote, is to contradict the future.

-- Lance Olsen, "Lessness," p. 294

289
from every angle
in this blue sky
i'm nowhere to be found

288
Easter Sunday
laid out around me
365 death poems

287
4:59
the most orderly time at work
for the heart to give out

286
looming
up ahead
the end

285
that's one
I won't see
death certificate

284
my life as a western
gettin' down and dirty
with death

283
a hole in the earth
a hole in the ozone
a whole in one

282
backed into
a corner
death

281
out the door
in sixty seconds
my last breath

280
30 x 365
that many sunsets left
if i'm lucky

279
just now
i
disappeared

278
envy
what was all
that for

277
envy
can't even take
that when i go

276
weight of the world
what happens to it
when I die

275
I'll fight you
for it
death

274
not your usual death/ mine

273
not
my
death

a
re
de
sign

272
57 now
& wondering what's down
the garbage disposal

271
the new austerity death

270
little by little
the garbage man
hauling me away

269
my birthday another small death

268
after
the
spin
cycle
you're

gone

267
not between
the pages of these books
my death

266
death
every
thing
changes

265
out of nowhere
it hits me again
my days are numbered

264
fading fresias
co-writing
our death poem

263
sign says
dead end
well then. . .

262
after the rain
kicking the bucket

261
old pond
Basho's frog and I
croaking

260
death
don't believe
everything you see

259
cold turkey
giving up
everything

258
rain all day
I can't find
my way home

257
sawdust
I was
that tree

256
unending rain
dying is
like that

255
distant train whistle
unable to tell whether
it's coming or going

254
that yellow bird returned
unable to shake the fact
my days are numbered

253
The poet Rilke has some extraordinary insights into the relationship between life and death. Here is what he observes in a letter to Nanny von Escher, translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows in A Year with Rilke:

Two inner experiences were necessary for the creation of these books (The Sonnets to Orpheus and The Duino Elegies). One is the increasingly conscious decision to hold life open to death. The other is the spiritual imperative to present, in this wider context, the transformations of love that are not possible in a narrower circle where Death is simply excluded as The Other.

Again, in Uncollected Poems, Rilke turns his poetic sights on death:

Somewhere the flower of farewell is blooming.
Endlessly it yields its pollen, which we breathe.
Even in the breeze of this beginning hour we breathe farewell.

252
the way ants
carry off their dead
my winter will

251
no direction home
waiting for the winter moon
to take me by the hand

250
don't close the coffin
before at least one lilac
wafts this way

249
the last pallbearer
showing up late
winter sunlight

248
clear winter night
searching for a suitable plot
among the stars

247
blood in Egypt
nourishing my own
winter grave

246
waiting for god
waiting for sunshine
gone with the snow

245
sunset
lay me down

244
sunset
I'm
going
down
too

243
winter sunshine
another wordless death
conveying something

242
twenty years
that's what's left if I go
when dad did

241
upward
outward
rejoining the ether

240
cold rain
cold rain falling
cold rain falling on my coffin

239
cold rain
the way a casket wobbles
in the hands of pallbearers