THE DEATH OF AN OLD MAN
ON AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON

The sun burns on with its single eye
but he lies in that waxen half-sleep
which is peculiar to approaching death
Disturbances of past speech struggle
at the lips and vestiges of old actions
writhe the limbs with a token violence

Then the voice freed from the captivity
of the frail organs regains its old power
and strides the misted maraes of the mind
Now the years collapse and time reasserts
its natural infinity
Beside the bed the women of the moving beads
pray through murmuring mouths ritual words
The image on the mantelshelf gives no sign
but pursues some secret inward life of its own
beneath the painted plaster folds of its mantle

The wind rises and an ancient keening
cries unasked and unanswered through the forest trees
In the room all movement has ended
but the candle bursts and the petulant shadows
crying on the whitewashed walls
Outside in the yard
brown leaves caught in a vortex dance
the year's end in a circle of biting wind
and intone scratchy incantations of decay
to the cynical roots in the darkness beneath
The shudder of the final impact breaks
the knotted cords of memory and life bursts free
De profundis clamavi ad te Domine
Domine exaudi vocem meam …
But the great trees begin the litany of a rising gale
and the whole world resounds to the fury
of their supplication.

—Frederick C. Parmée