Death on this city street 
is unnatural.
Declarative 
as a gunshot.
Fatal as poverty.
Blood stains on pristine sidewalks,
a nuisance.

If I died on this city street
I would first feel tossed like litter,
like the people thrown 
out of homes
plowed over, away,
buried under
heedless highways 
trembling high rise condos.
as screaming sirens
of careening police cars,
and ambulances,
played the urban dirge.

If I died on Weedon Island,
I would be like a tree,
my body felled 
onto the forgiving sand,
reclaimed 
by the endless
transformation
as green leaves are yellowed,
wasp wings dried to powder,
my bones brittled into soil
for Spring blooming magnolia trees,
underfoot of cautious raccoons, busy sparrows, 
quiet turtles, sleepy snakes, hurried bugs.

On Weedon Island
life and death move with the rhythm of bird calls
woot woot, 
pause,
woot woot, 
pause.
Rest and rise.
Rise and rest.
So the song,
and the daylight
comes and goes
comes and goes
like the final heartbeat, 
before the first breath.