The Weather Can Take Your Life
by Stuart P. Radowitz
The weather can take your life.
Cancer can take your life.
Pancreatic cancer spreads quickly
through your body like silver veins
reaching out.
The weather can take your life.
Ice, snow, slippery roads
can take your life.
The moon can take your life.
A full moon glowing on a clear night
and a crescent moon between clouds
can take your life.
Danger can take your life.
Boredom can take your life.
Being alone can take your life.
Or alone in a crowd, spinning
out of control until the only thing left
is not having that life.
The weather can take your life.
Heat in Florida, the tropics,
the mountains of Santa Fe, Taos Pueblo
can take your life. The chill
of North Dakota and Custer's Last Battlefield
and wildfires can take your life.
A bad doctor, a hospital emergency room
a hospital infection, bleach
can take your life. Drowning,
gasping, reaching out, looking inward
can take your life.
The weather can take your life.
Thorns pricking your finger will kill you.
The heart stopping, the lungs closing
will take your life.
Running into an abandoned building
and not getting out of an abandoned building
will take your life.
Strapped to a gurney will kill you.
Therapy sessions and therapy sessions
and not going to therapy sessions
will take your life.
The weather will kill you.
The weather will take your life.
Hit by a car crossing Queens Blvd.,
smashing your car into a tree,
trees smashing into you, colliding
with your right of way
will take your life.
The fire dept. will take your life.
Flames and fire and heat,
crumbling buildings and alley ways
after a Broadway show will take your life.
A yellow school bus or silver plane
diving out of the sky will take your life.
Warm spring afternoons will take your life.
Seasons changing back and forth and
faster and slower will take your life.
Sleeping alone, or waking alone, running
from dreams and falling down stairs
will take your life.
Dreaming of sleep, and dreaming of death,
being somewhere or not being really there
will take your life.
Early morning will take your life.
Harsh words like "get out of here"
or "leave me alone" or "stop"
will take your life.
The weather will take your life.
Rough seas and fisherman's rough hands
will take your life.
Going to sleep or waking up and
not sleeping will take your life.
The weather will kill you.
The weather will take your life.