Death and Life

Death is indifferent to life, but so
is life indifferent to death. I stand
before my friend’s passing and even though
distraught, red-eyed and thoroughly unmanned,

simultaneous and ineffable,
the joy of being alive permeates
throughout my being, inexorable
and vibrant as a child’s wonder creates.

This in of body experience, where,
ever incandescent in the present,
the physical, if sensed, makes one aware
that life is a miraculous present.

What makes death profane is eternity,
what makes life sacred is its brevity.