Crisis

If you knew
your date of death
you’d turn yourself into
a candle with wick enough
to carry your flame 
to its sputtering end.

If you could predict
the time you’d end
you would put on 
bright clothes and dance
on the sidewalk in front of
your future cemetary.

If we loved you enough, you say,
we’d let you do those things
unfettered by our impending
grief; in fact we’d ask you
how you did it and then
we’d try to do it for ourselves.

Now then, the crisis:
we must decide
at once how much
we love you.  
Do we love you enough
to disobey, or do we dare to obey?