A Man Dying

He lay stretched on the grass,
and a black specter was stealing toward him,
muffling its steps, whispering, insisting:
everything is over....

*

Over — all that life was filled with.
He was bathing on the grass
under the still light of the sun,
its rays lulling him with warmth...
Everything is quiet, in wondrous order:
no moan, no sound...
only the remnants of a life rattling in the throat,
striving hard to remain —
something strong holds it fast,
pulling at it, pulling in vain.

*

And from afar comes the fall of hammers,
as though they were nailing a coffin
for a new arrival,
and picks digging a pit
for him to be laid in.
The blows of the axes and the hammers
answer the beats of his heart,
fading, slow.

*

A light, mocking voice
cackles brazenly:
come, let us draw the curtain
on this world.

*

In his tremors is the violence of resistance,
and in his drowsing the submission of surrender,
and in his eyes a dimmed gleam
flickers, sad, trembling, throbbing,
like a lamp whose oil is nearly spent.
He struggles and he battles:
neither the summoning voice,
nor the black cloud,
nor the fall of hammers and axes
can blunt that resolve.

*

There is something stronger than death,
than its terrors and its specters....
It is life, which still
stirs in his frame.

*

Life and death are wrestling,
tugging at him from every side —
and nothing is loftier than this struggle...
And on the long road...
the sun shines, the breeze is soft and mild,
and everything says:
here is something great,
greater than the hurricane and the flood:
there a man lies dying.