Brown's Thoughts of Death

Sterling A. Brown


Thoughts of Death


Thoughts of death
Crowd over my happiness
Like dark clouds
Over the silver sickle of the moon

      Death comes to some
      Like a grizzled gangster
      Clubbing in the night;
      To some
      Like an obstinate captain
      Steadily besieging barriers;
      To some like a brown adder
      Lurking in violet-speckled underbrush;
      To some
      Like a gentle nurse
      Taking their toys and stroking their hot brows.

      Death will come to you, I think,
      Like an old shrewd gardener
      Culling his rarest blossom . . . .

Sterling A. Brown, The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown, ed. Michael S. Harper, HarperCollins Publishers, 1980.