When it’s born it begins to die,

Everything on earth and beyond the sky,

From endless deserts dry, to bottomless oceans devoid of light,

We’re only here for a moment of time,

A blink of an eye in the grand design,

We’re burnt out candles waiting to shine but,

There’s too many people living life with no spine,

Simulacrum’s walking around just dead ringers,

Polaroids developed without any pictures,

The hidden words speak between the scriptures,

With mindless chatter in the echoes of whispers,

Keeping us afraid of what must conspire,

Try all you want keep being a fighter,

You’ll still end up like the rest a non survivor,

Death works on his own clock quieter than a spider,

In the grand design of existence,

Every heartbeat echoes the destiny of our mortality,

Life flows effortlessly yet we’re attached to resistance,

Weaving together threads of life and death playing on our sanity,

We eclipse the boundaries of time and space, in coexistence,

Still we find ourselves in a cycle of birth and decay,

A quandary of counter sound throughout the ages,

That repeat itself in endless replays,

Whispering the truth of our shared mortality,

Waiting on us to have a moment of clarity,

In the kaleidoscopic tapestry of life,

We learn that we can’t survive, we must arrive,

For in this life we’ll never make it out alive,

From the rustle of leaves in the wind,

To the trees that sway, break or bend,

To the cosmic ballet of stars at night,

We know that through darkness is the only way to the light,

Every heartbeat is a step closer to the embrace of the void,

A place most are afraid of and try to avoid,

In the minds of those that tremble at the thought of death,

As they sweat thinking of when they’ll take their final breath

Fear often masquerades as a guardian of life,

That can teach us to live before we die,

They hold on tight to the ephemeral,

A constant clutch of an eternal funeral,

Seeking solace in the illusions of permanence,

In the puzzle of insubstantial substance,

Yet in their hearts lies a profound misunderstanding,

That death is an ending instead of a transformation,

Life is only a lesson in preparation,

From Buddha we learn that clinging to the self,

Is the source of your own self created hell,

To grasp at life is to misunderstand,

Life’s transient nature that keeps us in a trance,

Ah but those who embrace the wisdom of mortality,

Know and intertwine with the galaxy and spirituality,

The very essence of the cosmos woven from stardust and dreams,

Life and death are just the opposite of two extremes,

Shining bright both in the sun and moon beams,

Death is a mystery and is never how it seems,

When we excogitate the circle of life,

It shows us that we are more alike,

Like looking into a mirror inside a mirror twice

In the heart of a thousand why’s,

We’re still end up the same and win the same prize,

We learn death is not a solitary event but a communal feast,

We try to prevent our inevitable release,

From the whispers of the trees to the softness of a gentle breeze,

From the unlocked doors that don’t need a key,

With the need to bleed and the days that are stuck on repeat,

From the trees fallen leaves that wither and crumble to pieces

The ascension is hidden in every poem I’ve ever penned,

From the depths of darkness to the light that bends,

The end is the beginning, the beginning the end,

There’s more to life than the skin we are in,

A return to the earth that nourishes all,

From mountains in the sky to the creatures that crawl,

From the heights we climb to the bottom we fall,

When we are finally laid to rest,

In our eternal dirt nap dressed in our Sunday’s best,

Our bodies become a banquet for the bug’s and worms,

In their humble work they eat and squirm,

Transforms us into the soil that gives rise to new life born,

Grass nourished by decay, grows tall and green,

A biorhythm to the interconnectedness of the seen and unseen,

Animals graze upon verdant lands,

Within them the echoes of our existence expands,

When we feast on the animals, we eat ourselves might as well be cannibals,

We consume the remnants of our own journey,

The cycle of life and death a pure mystery,

When we gaze upon the bright stars at night,

We realize they too will perish in due time,

The celestial bodies, born from the cosmic womb of creation,

Will someday extinguish their light in termination and transformation

Leaving being mere whispers of wisdom and inspiration,

Every atom and particle is destined to return to the void purposefully,

Rendering our lives but fleeting moments in eternity,

With understanding comes liberation,

To overcome the lives we’ve lead with separation,

For the love we share and kindness we extend,

Will determine our peace when we take that final breath at the end,

To live mindfully and see each moment as a precious gift,

Will prepare us for our inevitable transition of the lives we lived,

Death becomes us, the final fate,

Yet death comes as a friend not an entity of hate,

A guiding friend leading us to shade.

Holding our hand as we begin to fade,

Death becomes us but not as the enemy,

A sage of wisdom partaking in our destiny,

A melody humming the notes of our legacy,

To live our lives impeccably, fleeting moments changing to moments of clarity,

Seeds waiting to spirit with endless possibilities,

Into flowers beautiful and free, waking up to limitless prosperity!

—TerrySalmon—