A Field Trip to a Morgue

Why is daddy sleeping?

We grow and change as children
New things our eyes do see
Wondrous and novel these things do seem
A rainbow, a sunset
A corpse?

All three so perfect and beautiful
All profound reasons to live
A rose petal, a stolen kiss
A bomb?

We know these things all inspire
Joy and hate in equal measure
Seeking love every day
Why is daddy sleeping?

He needs to sign my permission slip
We are born, we work, we die
And is in between just a glimpse
A glimpse of unrealized happiness?
A slave to a system of greed and hate
Death as escape not end perhaps?

Men in suits selling death
Is not such a bad thing despite your view
A passport to freedom beyond the grave
Commander and soldier, the killing fields
Two friends destroyed by hate and fear

I yearn to know the secrets
Of death, reaching for my very soul
The icy embrace, comforting still
Whenever I see it drawing near

To infant eyes the end, trivial
Thoughts dwelling on life and not its end
In age we abhor the passing dead
When it's only them I long to hear.