Before death itself arrives

Before death itself arrives,
it paints pine trunks all red
around the house.
It lifts the moon to the sky, a bright moon,
on its side, like an old vessel,
cracking at its enamelling of light
above this house where the night
now folds together.
And as the currents of water embrace and alternate,
the house slowly gets ready, all by itself,
for death.
Even long before death arrives,
moon mountains rise and fall
above the tiny house that was home,
crouching, breathing inaudibly.
The hinge of the night turns, the moon leaves
returning again.
I club a cross on the door and on the wall,
to the snow and to the trunk,
I light a wax cross
so that the guest may come.
Night, a wave chases a wave
night, the ebb and low of the snow.
Night, sweet-scented sheets and pillow cases
swell into sails, in anticipation,
on their journey from the rib cage to the earth,
to a resounding frozen earth.
You cannot stop on that road,
you cannot look behind, you
cannot hollo towards the front.
The heart may roll like little rugs
by the gate post, glow
like carnations against the snow's skin.
You, too, get ready, little bush,
licking my window with black flames.
Get ready and be prepared.
For death is kind
when it comes.
It holds you against its breast.
Wordless, it lets you know your childhood lullaby,
bringing it to you behind your bent back,
from beyond years, decades.
It gives a gift to your childlike hand, a gift
that you keep looking at with bleary eyes.
It gives you the song you thought you had forgotten.
Its shoulders and breasts are covered with flowers.
It is hollow, in order to take in the whole being.
It grabs you by your edges.
It spreads you out:
it tries to understand you.
And then it has grasped.
It nails your eyes open,
opens your mouth, from where
the tumult of life is escaping.
And you look, no longer at me,
but through me
beyond me
to your own death.
And to the white flowers
that have blossomed
around the tiny house.

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