It Is Only Life and Death

(Note: Today's prompt was to write a Cleave poem. This is a form new to me, in which the poem can be read in any/all of 3 parts. The first column is a discrete poem, the second column is a discrete poem, and the whole is a third integrated poem. This was challenging! I've put the second column in bold so that it is easier to read all 3 poems. Usually, I think the lines would run together, but that doesn't work on this site.)

I wouldn't mind living at the cemetery,

it is almost always very quiet,

there's usually a beautiful view,

whenever you pause.

I wouldn't want to be dead there--

That seems too permanent somehow,

but living there would be

like being surrounded with love--

peaceful, full of life, really--

consider the careful chiseling of birth and death,

smell the newly-mown grass,

bright flowers freshly cut,

note the mementos fading in the sun,

the sky full or sometimes empty,

it feels good knowing there's still room for me

somewhere on this precious planet.