The Naturalness Of Death.. Poem by RIC BASTASA

why do you weep when someone dies?
i am just curious because honestly i don't
and the many weepers really surprise me.
my mother died, i wore a thick tinted sunglasses
for i never weep, did not even shed a tear,
and i avoided being seen, lest i be ostracized
by siblings, relatives and friends who wonder
how numb and disrespectful had i been.

why do you weep? i really don't, and i have
my tear glands checked, and there are no more
tears there, perhaps, i must have overused them
in my childhood. And my father died, and my grandpa,
and grandma, and a friend died, i never shed a
tear, such a waste of resources, a waste of feelings.

look at the trees, when they shed off their leaves
on winter, did you hear the branches weeping?
look at the dogs, when one of them is butchered
did you hear a mother dog weep? or those butterflies
that live only for a day? or those birds, have you heard
a bird weep in the willows? no, none, never.

death is natural, do not defy it. death happens and
no one stops it, it would be too unbecoming of man
to shut its switches. death is your entrance to another
world, (if you have faith if you believe) , so why worry?
why cry? did you cry over a shell? there is nothing in there.