Alive

                                                  Robert Ronnow
                                                    Brother Death

                              Alive

What is appropriate to say about the changes
in your life. At 23 I was confused
about a girl, under the sculpted pines.

Quietly, my friends and I contemplate death.
A subject, until recently, unknown
to us in such a variety of forms. Nuclear flash
to exploding blood vessel in the brain, control
eludes us. Heirs to a society adept with numbers,
we run in the park and eat whole grains,
increasing survival odds.

The city and the mountain are two hard anvils
against which our hot lives are shaped. Love
is the fire, and the need for love. To be shaped
by the lover's warm hands, like clay.
Alive, almost sure of it.