he met his mortality with trembling limbs
    and gnashing words
            fiercely independent
    and clutching at every loose strand
nothing was in his control

he cursed life and death
  in the same breath
because opportunity had never proven itself
         to him
and so he asked more of time

     demanded it
to bribe regret away
he lived a life unlived
but this was invisible to him
                                                   until the end

it all lay behind him now
flatlands and an apathetic sky

Blue marble,
lifeless eye.
Rotten cherry scented earth.

Nuisances poking up,
being pulled out -
composted for new dirt.

Don't you go getting sedimental on me.
Grains of insignificance ingratiating themselves in want of new life.

Rotten blueberry orb.
Fermented fungal stink.
A world in full decay.
Eyes that cannot blink.

in the same room as a baby
and a great grandmother
wondering
how to be like both

eager yet slow
curious and wise

eyes don't know how to focus
      or what to focus on
perhaps it's a sign of the times
a signal that I am seeing things anew

what came first:
          the inhale      or      the exhale
is the moment of transition
a peak or a valley

this is the question of birth and death
    of rebirth and culmination
the leaf whispered to the seedling
yet neither remembered first touch
  a mother's womb is its own ecosystem
       a dark moist vacuum

           regalia regalia

she wants to lie down
and stop feeding but everything
relies on her
   even if she is just a link
she must be the strongest one
stand up when others sit
spit conviction while others question
in the endless spinning
she must have her own orbit
she has always held tight to what she needs

needless to say
she has been both twig and tree
and she came first waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
before any man

the kitchen table is set
     is perpetually set
with glued on utensils and fine China
bowls poured into with empty calories
and                even emptier words
we are accustomed to paper plates
and one off exchanges
        to using things and
          throwing them away