Metamorphosis
Up from the shadowed forest floor you rise,
Grim undertakers in the train of death
From whose smashed, stinking remnants you draw life,
Gorging yourselves upon his latest kill
With secret glee you never deign to show
Beneath your wide brims at your silent feast.
You end, though, featured at a splendid feast,
In sauces, soups, and stews whence scents arise
That tempt the palate as much as your show
On roast meats, bathed in wine or cream – the death
From which you rose, the putrefying kill
Forgotten, as you lusciously feed life.
Death-born, death-bearing, yet your craft is life,
Fashioned as much to heal as deck the feast,
Inclined as much to liberate as kill;
By you afflicted frames grow strong and rise,
Freed from disease, debility, and death,
Transformed as any miracle could show.
Transcending all corporeal bounds, you show
The universe beyond the outward life
For all who dare make you their divine feast,
Opening doors that lead past time and death,
Through which awakened souls in wonder rise
And glimpse spheres which seen otherwise would kill.
You nourish, heal, reveal – but also kill,
A secret murderer who dare not show
Your work until the final pangs arise;
Destroying angel squelching out all life
Covertly, a macabre and final feast,
Consumed consuming unto pang-wracked death.
Fiery angel of world-consuming death,
Ascending where atomic sun-fires kill
By millions; death once more becomes your feast,
But now you soar among the clouds, to show
Death’s grim dominion of all earthly life,
And, loosed from death, the soul’s desire to rise.
Prince of the realm of death, your workings show
The hand of God: you kill and yet give life,
And let the starved mouth feast, the bound mind rise.
Adam Sedia (b. 1984) lives in his native Northwest Indiana, with his wife, Ivana, and their two children, and practices law as a civil and appellate litigator. In addition to the Society’s publications, his poems and prose works have appeared in The Chained Muse Review, Indiana Voice Journal, and other literary journals. He is also a composer, and his musical works may be heard on his YouTube channel.