Better

I shared a flight with YSR once: he looked like an honest man; I am sad he died.
But a sage said, it is better to be a python’s prey than a rat’s:
To be devoured by death than nibbled alive, like those that have cancer, say –
But then who am I to judge
If he was right? Maybe it is better to die everyday by just little bits
And plan the afterlife, to have time for solace
In the smell of sticks, or the shadows inside
A church at dusk, with a nun in silence
Bent over the pages of her vast book.