The earth has to be broken before food starts.
The beginning is a soft greening, then it shoots,
soon it is taller than I’ll ever be and then it turns
golden. When I stand on a milestone
I can see the wave of the wheat. A lark is climbing
into blinding blue, trilling ecstasy.
                        

The others talk about death. How they
held their father’s hand. Hard of crying.
How their Mother smiled one last smile when they 
saw who it was, who’d come from far away
to accompany them on that last stretch.
How their sister, brother took their
last breath in their arms, how their lover
walked away, collar up against
the night air, how their dog 
expired under the lorry,
how the dead cat came
home in a box. Some ‘lost’ their
children to the unforeseen, others
watched their comrades explode,
there are those who buried wives
or husbands. 
 
Death has touched me only from afar,
took some figures off the board,
left some holes in the fabric 
of my life, blanked out colors, drew
misty curtains over faces, made me
an accomplice to murder: there were
the goldfish that froze in the pond,
the hibernating hamsters buried
in the back of the garden. Whenever
I imagine old friends, I correct myself
quickly: they’re probably dead.
 
Being as a migrating bird,
I have held nobody’s hand, 
didn’t listen to any last, labored breathing,
did not sit on plastic-covered chairs
in the hospital ward of last resort.
I have not been a witness.
Yet.