Death's Cornucopia Poem by Lonnie Hicks

She faced Death saying
'I've rolled up all the roads
traveled on my life's highway

I've burned all my dilapidated bridges
to light my way across

to see Dim Death there
my future on his map

I'm wrapped up
in my many past circumstances
making peace
with this
my Ethereal Now

all my visions
prodigal
paying my many just dues-

shedding too
all my surly life illusions

placing them among
my many compromised dreams;

before me now only
the unseen
dark-
stretching away
toward that yawning, ultimate abyss;

toward our ultimate separation-
a separation we have never known;
we two
facing now this wrenching goodbye;
this, ' she said 'is the hard part;

the leaving of
of our youth,
the photographs
the laughter
we've known
the children set now on their own
path.

That done
you with me
now is all
I need
to place my foot on this new path
undeterred
and brave.

He said

'Death's Cornucopia
can be
when we wrap ourselves
in our memories
which help us glide
gently
to that other side

but know, ' he said,
'that is in body only;
our Spirits surely
join before
to make a bridge
across
making us whole again
on the other side
even across Death's Divide.

She died
with a faint smile.

He was there
to the last
holding her hand.