Off-white Musing

Off-white Musing
The color of death is of interest to people.
I have heard it compared to varying hues.
Stark opposites, and spectrum extremes,
all seem to appeal for some reason or another.
Justification in opinion.
Tradition holds that death is black –
it is mourning, it is loss,
some dark corner of the wheel.
Some ideas proffer white –
the starkness of the struggle,
the sterility of medicine,
the last searing of a war-born fire,
the paleness of horse or rider.
Others say it swims in red,
blood’s hoarded color unwilling to be viewed.
The wash of violence,
and death wrought by mortal hand
rather than that dictated by fate,
or gods,
or chance.
More still say death’s choice is grey,
the fading of all shades,
the numbness of oblivion.
Passing beyond all sense,
no blush of afterlife or awareness,
not even the void.
For the wordless,
and those who work with them,
death is blue.
Bright as a new day in summer,
vivid as a gem, electric as neon.
Beauty masking purpose
until delivered to the heart,
injected into the branch,
calling a halt to all dances.
For me, death is transparent.
Luminescent clarity.
Sheening of all tones and none.
The tint of tears,
someone told me.
Maybe, I said.
But tears are not always given,
or coaxed unwilling outwards.
Sometimes,
there is only the glassy shine
of an eye that sees,
then does not.