MAN IS PAWNED

Hold the hand of one who dies
To offer strength as death pries
As the chasm of sorrow deepens
And the divide in timeline widens
When the spirit slips away
Freed up from this mass of clay
Away, and ranges through the regions
Known only to death’s many legions
When dusk finds night and they merge
And this life is on death’s verge;
 
Then, pursuits distil to mere lightness
Cloaks of castes, shed, show man as classless
Both sceptre and scythe indeed
Pare down the last call to heed
Our grip on life loosens with the grief
At passing, reminding us how brief
Man’s stay on earth; how so frail
His glory from lifelong grail
Death, life’s avowed betrothal of dread
Takes man as pawned victim in its stead.