Death

a poem by Roger B Rueda

for Nenita P Biñas, my late grandmother

An image flashed through my dream:
A chair on which leaves and flowers were carved
And with coat of varnish, deserted in a grassy field,

Was left in the rain, its legs almost rotting.
Who created the sculptures? Whose chair is this?
I asked myself.

At midnight,
Death, a seed as though, was blown by the wind
To my heart , it clogged my drain then.

All my instincts told me to wake up, my body like
Dark earth, a plot, and I thumped myself in the chest:
Death sprouted faith, growing up—and flowering.


I closed my window then. My Sculptor,
A dove, perhaps, of a ray of  light, was by me.

Then, there I saw I am a chair, too—

I realised then darkness, both within and outside me,
Contrived to hide my soul.