What is this that takes the immoral, the wicked, and the weak? What is this that takes the righteous and the strong. We have referred to it as our end, departure, extinction, impending doom, eternal rest, last sleep, and most certainly our final summons -at least, as far as known life is concerned-. The Bible has named it, "the latter end". Shakespeare has called it "the journey's end" and "a knell that summons thee to heaven or hell". The dark side, as Pink Floyd relates to it, is a prevailing aspect of our lives. No matter how one refers to death, three things are certain: First, it is inevitable. Second, it will happen to everyone. Third, it needs life to occur and yet is in opposition to it. Because of death holding it's shadow to the divine spark of life, it is obvious that whenever a person talks of death they invariably talk of life. True to this statement are Terry Wolverton's poems in Mystery Bruise. Her poems embrace aspects of life as she sees it and almost all of these "dancing insights" mention death. In addition to death running hand and hand with life is the concept of continuous change. Wolverton men

"Even while dying the plum tree bears fruit" is a powerful line from "The Plum Tree". It suggests the previous notion of life being so intertwined with death, but proposes that as life fades into darkness a lasting light can soon ignite. Even though the plum tree has a diseased trunk and possibly accepts it's death it brings forth life that we in turn eventually pluck from it's dying limbs. The fact that we do so demonstrates once again the aspect of human destruction and the urge of death, whether it be intentional or not. Later Terry Wolverton compares the plight of the plum tree to her dying friend, Gil Cuadros, who in his diseased days of dying urged his weakening body to bring forth literary work born from his condition.

The poem of Terry's that I especially like is "Yahrzeit", another death sonnet. This sonnet is dedicated in memory of the deceased, Flora Silton. Alike the poem for Gil where lines of the living and the dying/death were blurred, this sonnet too deals with a similar obscurity of distinct worlds. In "The Plum Tree" it was shown that spurts of excessive life can arise from a frail, dying spirit while in "Yahrzeit" the blurring of the living world and the world of death is demonstrated in the following lines: "You fill the apartment , shine through it's yellow walls; there's no room you do not occupy, yet, searching, we cannot find you, except in dreams." The other obscurity is when Terry tells of her visitations to Flora in the dream world. Set within the parameters of life is the world in which sleep gains you access to the dimensions of the subconscious reality. This is the world between worlds where it certainly is possible to achieve that child-like imagination people hide and distort as they change into adulthood.

Midway through the piece Terry Wolverton addresses the reluctance of the dinosaur to it's demise. She also mentions our denial of death and the ironic acceptance of our life in it's clammy hands, saying that "Even at the moment of death we back away, tread air against the light that beckons, clutch at our particular plot of dust". It's almost a

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Approximate Word count = 1424
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)