Death Is Life Friendless Poem by Noah Smits

Death is life friendless, one's spirit afloat
in a quarantined ether, still conscious but still
The moments all captured, the stories all wrote
and the memories linger, impossible to kill

For a man's a mere ripple in reality's hush
in a world of static things with purpose known
Here's a purpose-searching creature all up in a rush
he disturbs the contentment as tremors rock stone

If a November sun in its pallor and stress
takes a dive ‘round four-thirty with stamina sapped
and the sighing shines indigo as the duress
turns a worker's face pink, by exertion a-chapped—
at the front stand these shapes, so familiar once
before winter's impatience deprives them of mien
the sides undefined rippling, backs flirting with fronts
in a dark untimed shimmy on fading blue scene
with the tentacles whispering their questioning cracks
as to why this dim backdrop is changing so quick
(this time last week was cobalt, this week it's near black)
like ice sinking deeper in the rising Arctic—
drowning and darkening, envelops a tree
alone and impotent to commiserate
Wilt thou mutter or shout with oblivious esprit?
or'll nihility engulf thee from thy steadfast state?

No recognition—interaction—nor gains from a friend
break through thy boundless echo, and that is thy end.