Exhaustive

Except in cases of accident
Or purely mechanical failure,

Dying is never life vs. death.
Dying’s life vs some other life.

Plague? Life against life. Homicide?
Life vs. life. Cancer? Life on life.

Parasitism and predation
And harvesting whatever you farmed—

Life taking life to keep life going.
And if you starve, that seems like pure death,

But you probably starved when crops failed,
And they probably failed due to blight,

Or since the soldiers burned them all bare.
Life vs. life vs. life. Rockslides

And lightning bolts, earthquakes and blizzards—
Those are the only pure forms of death,

And they’re also among the quickest.
Death’s half merciful. Life’s merciless.