Read Poem: REAPER, by Tamar Brooks

Your presence darkens heart’s delight
As you appear on wings of night
The aura of finality
The only shred of certainty.
You come to take from we who live
What we are not prepared to give
Yet I fear not twelve times twenty-three;
Why should I have fear of thee?
It may ne’er be understood
What dwells beneath your inky hood
This shroud of fearful superstition
Forbids the light of intuition.
However true this case may be,
I see a similarity:
No individual represents
A single purpose or intent.
In other words, one soul is named
A hundred ways and lives the same.
A father is a husband, too
So it must also be with you.
Harbinger of raw despair,
Cause for unexpected care,
Pain and suffering’s liberator,
Sudden heartbreak’s cold curator,
The ending steps of every path,
Respondent to a moment’s wrath,
Uninvited company
Into hearts that once were…