Death as Death
by Laura Riding

To conceive death as death
Is difficulty come by easily,
A blankness fallen among 
Images of understanding,
Death like a quick cold hand 
On the hot slow head of suicide. 
So it is come by easily
For one instant. Then again furnaces
Roar in the ears, then again hell revolves, 
And the elastic eye holds paradise
At visible length from blindness,
And dazedly the body echoes
‘Like this, like this, like nothing else.’

Like nothing––a similarity
Without resemblance. The prophetic eye, 
Closing upon difficulty,
Opens upon comparison,
Halving the actuality
As a gift too plain, for which
Gratitude has no language,

Foresight no vision.

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