Undertaker, by Melinda Dewsbury

Procession in Fog, by Ernst Ferdinand Oehme (Germany). 1828.

Undertaker

He is waiting.
There is no hurry.
Exhalations
push against
life
drag youth from bones
displace oxygen
fog on life’s unfinished
canvas.
His stench paints over
hope’s joy.
He has already claimed it.
There is no hurry.

Melinda Dewsbury

This poem was written for the surprise ekphrastic I See a Darkness challenge.

Melinda has been in love with beauty and the beauty of words since she can remember.  She grew up in rural Ontario among the rhythms of the agricultural cycle and now lives in Langley, BC, where she teaches writing, literature, and linguistics at Trinity Western University. Although she has written poetry for decades, she has not yet taken the great leap into sharing it publicly. These poems, written as part of the surprise ekphrastic I See a Darkness challenge, mark the first time.