When she saw a corpse in the snow,
fringed by a clear melt line,
she knew he'd lain there quite a while,
taking his time to die.
What'd you suppose he'd been thinking,
as breath clouds shrank to naught?
Did he wonder if death was better
when it was a fight you fought?
Maybe he was past such concerns,
and in his final hours,
he conjured into his mind a
field of spring wildflowers.
Maybe he'd moved beyond caring,
and just lie, feeling cold,
tuning into the clouds above
watching their shapes unfold.
No one could ever know such things,
so why did she so care?
That someone should, occurred to her,
was only right and fair.