Death Poem by Thabani Khumalo

Death is a garden boy
And the millionaire, my father be.
He sends him out to plant his seed
And the garden boy starts a nursing bed.

He sends disease to prune the leaves
And top-dress leaves to see stems grow.
The weeds and grain both share the mud,
But quickly, he comes and pulls out the weeds.

The weeds are as bad as the pests they feed
But the grain he tends for my father’s table.
The death that gives for the gardens’ bloom,
It is he that comes and reaps in seasons’ due.