Saying It Eastern-Style & Departure

By Tom Merrill

Saying It Eastern-Style

Nature traps its prey
with lures contrived to conceal
a murderous heart.

It never could harm
if its offerings repelled.
A strong stink could save.

Wish it a foul smell—
hope its baits turn repugnant
enough to starve it.

It aims to excite.
Its object in arousing
is always new prey.

Nature would be fed.
Its driving will is to launch
all food-bearing seed.

All will be devoured
by a ravenous charmer.
No spawn will be spared.

Departure

Well boxed, and neatly packaged like a thing,
Back from the final purge he duly came,
The pulverized reduction postmen bring
When bodies have become cold feast for flame.
Into a vessel made to store the crushed
I poured the coarse remains of someone fine—
A bag of bits, of gray and grainy dust,
One shocking essence spirit leaves behind.
Housed now in hard cement beneath the ground,
He cannot share the living's deep concerns,
Nor must he yet endure, unsafe, unsound
As we who tremble while we wait our turns.
Behind him lies the pain past all relief,
The love that yet m…