These are poems about the passage of time, aging, mortality and death.
The Shrinking Season
by Michael R. Burch
With every wearying year
the weight of the winter grows
and while the schoolgirl outgrows
her clothes,
the widow disappears
in hers.
Published by Angle, Poem Today (featured poem), Heartfelt Death Poems, Girls and Goblins and Madly Jane
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Distances
by Michael R. Burch
These are poems I have written about time, mortality, aging, death and loss.
Thirty
by Michael R. Burch
Thirty crept upon me slowly
with feline caution and a slowly-twitching tail ...
How patiently she waited for the winds to shift!
Now, claws unsheathed, she lies seething to assail
her helpless prey.
Modern Charon
by Michael R. Burch
These are poems about coming together, or failing to come together due to misunderstandings, alienation, divisions, a loss of interest, or simply the passage of time affecting human relationships …
Come!
by Michael R. Burch
Will you come to visit my grave, I wonder,
in the season of lightning, the season of thunder,
when I have lain so long in the indifferent earth
that I have no girth?
When my womb has conformed to the chastity
your anemic Messiah envisioned for me,
will you be satisfied that my sex was thus rendered
unpalatable, disengendered?
These are my modern English translations of epigrams by ancient poets like Homer, Rumi and Seneca.
Elevate your words, not their volume. Rain gros flowers, not thunder.
—Rumi, translation by Michael R. Burch
For the gods have decreed that unfortunate mortals must suffer, while they themselves are sorrowless.
—Homer (circa 800 BC), Iliad 24.525-526, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
In their haiku the Oriental masters of the form frequently used dew as a metaphor for the transience of life. Some of these poets have used dew metaphorically in a jisei (a type of death poem sometimes called a “zen death poem”) … but then I discovered to my surprise that I had used dew in similar ways quite frequently in my own poetry …
This world?
Moonlit dew
flicked from a crane’s bill.
— Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
A woman I have never seen before
Steps from the darkness of her town-house door
At just that crux of time when she is made
So beautiful that she or time must fade.
What use to claim that as she tugs her gloves
A phantom heraldry of all the loves
Blares from the lintel? That the staggered sun
Forgets, in his confusion, how to run?
Still, nothing changes as her perfect feet
Click down the walk that issues in the street,
Leaving the stations of her body there
Like whips that map the countries of the air.
To the tune of "Happy Event Is Nigh"
The wind ceases; fallen flowers pile high.
Outside my screen, petals collect in heaps of red
and snow-white.
This reminds me that after the blooming
of the cherry-apple tree
It is time to lament the dying spring.
Singing and drinking have come to an end;
jade cups are empty;
Lamps are flickering.
Hardly able to bear the sorrows and regrets
of my dreams,
I hear the mournful cry of the cuckoo.
To the tune of "Lamentation"
It was far into the night when, intoxicated,
I took off my ornaments;
The plum flower withered in my hair.
Recovered from tipsiness,
the lingering smell of wine
broke my fond dream
before my dreaming soul could find
my way home.
All is quiet.
The moon lingers,
And the emerald screen hangs low.
I caress the withered flower,
Fondle the fragrant petals,
Trying to bring back the lost time.