Lover’s Quarrel
“My Dear,” Death began,
with a rush of wind and dead leaves.
“I know you think me cruel.
A wicked thief,
stealing even the first, choking cry from the lungs of your littlest.
Cutting beauty’s fragile thread
and leaving it to rot.
Allowing noxious evil to creep across the earth undetected,
unchecked by my hand.
I know you call me unjust.
It’s true, I would not follow Man‘s justice had I the choice;
to call me forth with human lips and hands is a desecration.
Your precious babes are yet to find peace between their fear of me,
and their disrespect.
Do not pretend you have not seen my anguish. I am the claw that drops,
I am the bite.
Your squealing offspring think not to ask my permission,
they think not what right their flat palms have to commit with my hand.
I am the bite,
and the mouth,
and the body.
I am every part of myself and my task,
and your putrid, wonderful children
think to summon me.
They dare to involve my magic upon themselves and others.
Don’t you see,
my Dear?
You call me murderer,
for taking the lives you have moulded from your breast,
your sacred womb.
I never wanted to hurt you,
to show you this awful truth,
though your hatred pains me,
though it rips at my heart.
I would take all the vemon of your young,
I would take every tiny curse with a smile,
to save you knowing.
But they begin to call you forth too often, my love-
your breast lies thin,
your womb is raw
from their ransacking and demands.
It is those very lives
you are emptying yourself for,
that force my fist upon their flesh.
Your babies are just dying to leave you.
Forgive me, my Dear.
Let me help you,
let me take what you
cannot afford to keep,
and let me watch you heal.”
The universe paused,
holding it’s breathe.
“It’s true,” Life began.
“I know your cruelty well.
I have seen you commit
unspeakable violence
on what you knew I loved.
And I have loved you anyway.
I have seen your bite,
your tearing mouth,
savage the beauty
I spent my whole self on.
Foolishly,
I thought you an ignorant beast.
I thought your evil, unknowing.
Like a wild, unthinking terror,
you were maiming and destroying
what you did not understand.
But you knew.
You saw my pain,
and the terrible emptiness
the loss of my children has caused.
You knew it all,
and took them anyway.
How can you dare to be so arrogant?
How can you dare think you know
my limit better than I?
Yes I am tired,
but not from creation,
never from the generosity of my magic.
I am exhausted by loss.
I could forgive an animal,
an amoral, frightened thing.
I could have forgiven you forever,
though your violence pains me,
though it rips at my heart.
But you have known the ache
your destruction causes,
and you have had no mercy.“
Death turned,
weeping,
bowed his head.
In the wake of his moaning,
earthquakes rose,
and mountains opened,
and the skies opened,
and the seas chewed
the edges of the world.
Life,
stood still.
She paused a minute,
a last, longing look towards him,
then moved on.