I seem to be writing a lot on the theme of death lately. Here's a draft of a poem on that line from today, after reading a few by Muriel Rukeyser:

Ancestors
One from my line, young, with an innocent smile,
a collared suit, walked
into the night from a party,
Collapsed right there in the snow.
One, with a hat and cigar, drove his model T
Around and around the town square
Like a dog foaming with lowered head, stopping
At last on the train’s tracks
As it bore down.
One who wore wigs
And for whom I bought a vase
With paper route money,
Said quietly to her friend one day,
“I think this is it,”
And was right.

And fevers and childbed
and natural causes that today would have
Lain in ICU until despondent or complete
And bullets brass and bursting and
Outrageous arrows and spears
And sorrow and longing and confusion,
And despair, or stubbornness or
Indifference. A dull axe, an unchecked harness,
Cruelty, careful planning, accident,
the venials, the deadlies,
The elements, Its wrath,
Someone’s revenge, their poisoned heart,
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know
Stretching back in time to an infinitesimal
Beginning with something that It felt
Within Itself, that It feels still and we can’t
Get enough of, a taste of danger, the ability
To grieve. How we all want to cry from not
Enough money or sex or love or food, and those with plenty
Seeing others die and not enough and want, want want
and lord, lord, lord.