Easy Does It

All death’s anniversaries

Are set among the living

Who do the dying for them—

The art’s not to try to be

Wise, immune, or virtuous—

Not when virtuosity

Repeatedly proves useless.

The art, if there is an art,

Would be to decelerate

The destruction, or at least,

To not accelerate it,

To slow the rate of decay.

You can’t save yourself. You can’t

Save yourselves. Death itself saves

More than anything else does,

But until then, you will be

Stuck with doing the dying

With all the others dying

And trying to save themselves—

And you, if they’re kind, as you,

If you’re kind, try to save them.

Maybe just slow down a bit.

It could extend suffering,

But it could also ease it.

Who can’t love a therapist

Who eases you back into

Movement among the living,

A little away from death,

Even embracing dying,

Whispering to you, Easy,

Easy does it, as you grope

For a handhold in the wreck

Of all this to take deep breaths?