A SOMBER ONE, TODAY

A KIND OF BLISS

He says he fears not death

so much as the suffering

and pain that might

precede it.  And yet he fears

the profound humiliation

of impotence, the helpless

indignity of incontinence,

the exposure of the body’s

naked infirmity to incurious

eyes; he fears not death itself,

but the stench and shuffle

of approaching death, atrophy

of the limbs, confinement

to the sick bed.  And, yes,

in the end he must admit

he dreads that final, agonizing

glimpse of loved ones, the last

rasping labor of the lungs,

the solitary, swift passage

from life into that gaping

maw, the infinite black hole

of not-being, for eternity. 

All this, in quiet moments,

Coyote meditates, finding

in tranquil contemplation

of the dread some measure
of serenity, a kind of bliss.