When I Die Poem by Daniel Brick
When I Die
When I die, I must abandon
everything with weight, everything
with dimensions, extensions, details.
Will it not be exhilarating
to see all those useless things
falling away from me? Falling
steadily through the Dome of Inner Space,
until that immensity itself dissolves them...
Meanwhile I draw closer to canaries,
those small things that insert their
brevity into my care, because they know
no care. As nimble as air, as free as a song
in no known key, they wing through their
brief lives, giving us a lesson in beauty.
Ever devoted to the LIGHT itself, they
cling to me, going where I am going,
wherever that might be.....
I like the the turn in this poem. The speaker begins with a heaviness-death, loss and abandonment. I sense a bit of an unreliable narrator talking about losing the 'useless things, ' with that loss phrased as a question. But then the speaker lets go and compares dying to his canaries and the poem switches from death and loss to the lightness of flight and living with out care. It is as this point, that the death becomes another form of life.
The impact of the poem so well writ... it hits you like, like...a brick, well done Daniel Brick
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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5/5/2024 11:37:03 AM # 1.0.0.1119
First, Daniel, amen. Then, the summoning of canaries is surprising and delightful for me. “As nimble as air, as free as a song in no known key” strikes me as inspired imagery—cool! I like. -Glen