This feels wordy and cumbersome to me; I suppose I need to find some better words so I can use fewer of them. I can’t stay up fiddling with it any more, so here’s a poem for the eighth day of Lent.
Bedside vigil
to the suffering, death is an angel
whose feather-soft hands smooth
lines from the face and untie
knotted muscles
to the watcher, waiting, death
is a cloud shadow that leaves
the landscape radiant
when it passes
The Daily Compost 