A Dawning of Dying

In my youth, I saw a bird's ravished body
Lying in the silence of a furrow.
Its auburn feathers were wilted and shoddy,
And ants stripped its flesh and belly thorough.

Strange, so strange imagining this bird to be—
To have once ascended the vaulted blue,
To have woven music in the old oak tree,
Or to have plucked from grass the morning dew ...

And now, alas! struck down from the sky it flew,
This bird, this tiny little creature lies
Displaying a sure message in open view
That whatever comes to live also dies.

In the quietude of that lonely meeting
I marveled dreadfully that this should be:
That death swallows life, and that life is fleeting,
And that all will succumb ...
                                                            ... including me.