Only the dead can die

[alonso ramoran]

Hi Keith,
Enjoyed the read. I'm still trying to digest the thematic contents of the poem so most of my comments might be on the technicalities below.

As we cough cold into the forests forest's*?
pale cascket, the burning cloak casket* burning cloak is a nice image btw
of sunlight is taken down,
empty streets keep us fireside.

Snowfall beckons a lonely child
to follow a ball into the road, would "onto" be a more appropriate preposition or no?
the crunch and soft thud, laid still
as temperatures drop.

Could we replace the commas in this stanza with periods?
Frozen mourners gather mist on funeral days, I love the sound of this line and the line below
sharp black trees carry distant crow calls
around hard graves, weathervains only watch weathervanes*
as church-bells warn the town. This sounds like a good ending, but I'm not sure what I missed to get what the bells are warning about. The whole poem has a foreboding tone (with crows, graves, funeral days, casket) but I'm never sure of what. In fact, it sounds foreboding of death (death is even mentioned in the title) but why is death coming? I guess that's what I'm getting at. Is it because these people are already dead like in the title but in the metaphorical sense? If this is so, than death could be taking two meanings in the poem. One of them could be the traditional definition of death, but the other is one I'm not aware of.

Appreciate the read Keith,

Alex