The Difference Between a Child and a Poem

If you are terrified of your own death,

and want to escape from it,

you may want to write a poem,

for the poem might carry your name

into eternity, the poem

may become immortal, beyond flesh

and fashion, it may be read

in a thousand years by someone

as frightened of death as you are,

in a dark field, at night,

when he has failed once again at love

and there is no illusion with which to escape

the inward pull of his own flesh

against the narrowing margins of the spirit.

But, if you have accepted your own death,

if you have pinched daily the corroborating flesh,

and have passed the infinite gravestones

bearing your name, if you know for certain

that the day will one day come when you

will gaze into the mirror in search of your face

and find only a silence, then

you may want to make a child, you may want to push

the small oracles of flesh forward

into some merely finite but lengthening story,

you may want to toss your seed into the wind

like a marigold, or a passion fruit, and watch

as a fresh flower grows in your place, as your face

inches onto another face, and your eyes

slip down over your cheeks onto the forehead

of your silenced, speakable future.

And, then, when you are done with all that,

you may want to write a poem.