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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Our Color, Our Gender, Our Creed”, then her poems “Death Takes Many Forms (12/8/19 studio TV show recording)”, and “Us, Actually Touching”, originally from her Scars Publications bonus cc&d chapbook “Public Access Poetry” but appearing in and read from the Scars Publications 7-12 2019 cc&d expanded issue collection book “Among the Debris”, as one of the readings in her January 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Our Color, Our Gender, Our Creed”, then her poems “Death Takes Many Forms (12/8/19 studio TV show recording)”, and “Us, Actually Touching”, originally from her Scars Publications bonus cc&d chapbook “Public Access Poetry” but appearing in and read from the Scars Publications 7-12 2019 cc&d expanded issue collection book “Among the Debris”, as one of the readings in her January 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr).

Death Takes Many Forms (12/8/19 studio TV show recording) Janet Kuypers edited from the poem “Death takes many forms.” performed in studio for Texas Nafas Poetry show It is winter now. The trees have lost their leaves; the city is covered in a thin layer of soot and snow. The grass is dead. In the sunless sky black birds circle overhead searching for prey. An eerie cold settles over everything. Nothing is growing anymore. Death takes many forms. For you, death first came when you were five years old and your mother had to give you three shots of insulin a day until you could take a needle to yourself. Did it hurt to push that needle into your arm, the first time? Or did it hurt you more to know you had no choice? Death takes many forms. You wouldn’t hear the howling wind of the changing seasons, but I know what follows the autumn wind. It is winter now. Do you remember when it happened? The changes are subtle, the temperature drops, first only slightly. It’s almost imperceptible. Only when the first snow falls do you realize where the seasons have gone. Death takes many forms. Death can be a sweat-soaked shirt, the shakes, dizziness when you needed food. You would look as pale as a ghost as I would hold your cold wet arm and steady you. Quick, some sugar will make everything better. Isn’t everything better yet? Death takes many forms. I said good bye to you to travel my own road but I knew you didn’t want me to go. And now it’s my turn. Why are we always saying good bye to each other? ...Are you trying to teach me a lesson? Because if you are, well, I’ve learned it. Trust me, I have. You can come back now. Death takes many forms. And now, now it seems you’ve taken me down with you you’ve taken me into that casket with you and I’m running my hand along your jacket lapel and I can feel the coldness of winter all around me and I can hear them shoveling the dirt over my head and I want to get out and I want to take you with me. Now, you once showed me that winter could be beautiful. Instead of the dark and dirty snow lacing the city streets you showed me a quieting snowfall, over a lake at your parent’s back yard glistening in an untouched whiteness. I told you I hated winters and you told me, “This you don’t hate.” Well, I’m still learning. It is winter now. And death takes many forms. The seasons change for you and I. It is snowing. And something is ending. It is snowing. Somewhere it is snowing.

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