Day 6: Reaper

I know this is late one day but I had this almost finished but didn't have time to publish it. Today will be a two-post day (which I hope does not become a regular thing).
Anyways, yesterday's poem has to do with re-imagining Death. Death is a serious thing and we have given it the symbol of it looking like a skeleton with a scythe. This figure is to give us terror, make us afraid of the end. This poem tries to have us imagine Death as being something else, like one of us.

Reaper
by Billy Collins

As I drove north along a country road
on a bright spring morning
I caught the look of a man on the roadside
who was carrying an enormous scythe on his shoulder.

He was not wearing a long black cloak
with a hood to conceal his skull-
rather a torn white tee-shirt
and a pair of loose khaki trousers.

But still, as I flew past him,
he turned and met my glance
as if I had an appointment in Samarra,
not just the usual lunch at the Raccoon Lodge.

There was no sign I could give him
in that instant-no casual wave,
or thumbs-up, no two-fingered V
that would ease the jolt of fear

whose voltage ran from the ankles
to my scalp-just the glimpse,
the split-second lock of the pupils
like catching the eye of a stranger on a passing train.

And there was nothing to do
but keep driving, turn off the radio,
and notice how white the houses were,
how red the barns, and green the sloping fields.

Even though Death in this poem is a person the same fear is felt by the author as if it were a skeleton in black. The end of our times is a fear that all humans have so it makes the feelings of this poem relatable. My favorite part of the poem is where the narrator has a hard time choosing a sign to give Death, like waving. I am a firm believer of re-imagining everything around you, trying to look at it through different eyes. That is the main reason I chose this poem.

If you have any thoughts about this poem, please leave a comment!