I’m out early this morning to work in my yard before the heat makes it a chore rather than an enjoyable activity. Garden bag, clippers, and a few bags of mulch already in the front yard, I head around the house to get the spade and watering can. Just past the end of the driveway, death was waiting for me in the form of a small opossum.

This isn’t the first time I’ve found what remained after a bird of prey fed – there are a number of hawks and owls living in my neighborhood. The raptors keep the populations of small animals in check – as much a part of the circle of life as bats keeping the insect population within reason. But knowing that the tiny opossum died to feed a raptor, accepting that as nature’s regulating overpopulation, doesn’t mean that it isn’t a loss.

Instead of laying mulch in the front garden beds, I dig a hole, say some prayers, and bury one of God’s creatures.

I move on to dividing the mint threatening to take over the garden bed, then to replacing the snow peas and nasturtiums that have been eaten by the three bunnies who’ve taken a liking to my plants. Two herons make their morning flight over me; a couple of robins peck at the grass; the teen next door walks by on the his way to school. Life surrounds me in infinite variety and beauty. Death, too, accompanies me.

Perhaps it’s time to take a look at these companions of mine – life and death. You are welcome to keep me company.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Robert Frost – contemplating life and death…

[This is one piece in Randall Thompson’s Frostiana: Seven Country Songs. It was commissioned by the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1959 to commemorate the town’s bicentennial. Thompson set seven poems by Robert Frost, who lived for several years in Amherst, to music.]