Did You Ever Wish For Death? Poem by Patti Masterman

Did you ever wish for death?
Just to kick all that dust, back up into the air
The dust of all the other poor passed on souls;
Shake up the status quo of ego's expectations-
Things get way too settled sometimes.

Did you ever wish someone would die
And not even care particularly, if it were you, or not you
Or when or if, some time, it should be arriving
As if there were no schedule for such a thing at all.

As a child I pitied older people-
Always staring down into that hourglass
As they were, because their time was almost up
Compared to mine; my hourglass was brand new-
The sand was so fine and golden, it flowed so smoothly, so slowly
Death was far away then I could skip stones across at him
Laugh him away from far down the wind which carried me along
Miles past the reach of him, or so I imagined.

But my loved ones had kite strings hidden,
Attached at the chest, and they tugged,
Pulled at all my organs, pulled them out of place, one by one,
As they each lay dying in turn; hours all used up,
Their glasses nearly empty.

So that my own sand became disheveled,
Causing me to no longer care about hourglasses;
Even if they broke; even if the sand went everywhere.

The parts scattered, kite strings flapping,
Sand blowing away- I am not the same girl at all:
Let the young ones worry now about the hourglass..

I don't know what happened to that girl-
If you see her tell her it's alright; that hourglass
Never really measured time well-
Better yet: break all the hourglasses
And let us all live safely out of the reach
Of sundials.