Death Our Sister

This is a hymn I wrote some years ago as a kind of meditation on Francis' language of Death as our sister, by the death and resurrection of Jesus.




St. Francis
jrm+

His suffocated smile exhausted
Drops all pretense now, accosted
Undiluted death

Her honest disregard is flagrant
Open on her faint but fragrant
Guacamole breath

His jello in the corner warming
Mind at loss and set to swarming
Aches to break the day

Recollections drip with pictures
Dreams and loves and kitchen fixtures
Cracking earth, a way

But still she stands, her shadow rising
Death's resolve uncompromising
Concocted grins convulse

Shriveled hands delight in feeling
Weakness made so strong, revealing
Diarrhea pulse

Gasping now, he dreams in paintings
Splashing hope like light un-fainting
Praying hope to life

At his last, this unknown mister
Sweetly whispers, calls her, sister,
Soft unsettled strife

As he pecks her cheek, releases
Her bewildered heart in pieces
Quickens at his side

Her innocence at one time ended
She finds in his her life amended:
Baptized holy Bride