Posts for June 3, 2021 (page 5)

They say death is the greatest fear

They never say if it’s our own

Or everyone else’s.

But that is such a vague description

Of the fear.

We fear that there’s nothing after we’re gone

Just black,

Empty,

Nothingness.

We fear that when someone we love dies,

That we won’t know how to live without them

And that we won’t know where they ended up.

There are no lessons on death,

Sure, there are therapists,

And conspiracy theories,

And religious beliefs,

And funerals.

We hush around the topic,

We try not to bring it up,

We say “I’m sorry for your loss,”

We lie that it gets easier,

We protect ourselves

By creating a beautiful afterlife

But the greatest fear of it all

Is that we can not be taught about death

It is the greatest question of humankind

With no answer at all,

Our elders can give us their opinions

An old book can create an image

But we will never know, nor understand,

Until that fear has become a reality

i.

Decades ago
or decades from now
we are living in the future,
or the past.
It all depends on which way we are facing.

ii.

Every time we turn around
we face ourselves,
and turn again, afraid
to look.

iii.

And in the distance we see
the tree of heaven
or the roots of hell.
And we are afraid
again.

iv.

Through the window
we see all there is:
the open, the shut
the big, bright, beautiful,
dark, drab, dreary
nothing, everything.

v.

It’s all there,
through the open window.
And turning to the mirror, we see
the same.

truth comes
in a whisper

I never thought death would be a woman.
A cowboy , maybe, on a painted pony
his chaps wide to quell the dust of the
stampede.
Or a well heeled character in a cutaway tux
tapping rhythmically next to me.

I may ride or dance to heaven, 
a rodeo or a ball!

I know, I go alone.

Still fantasy does not fail me.
My last image, Li Young Lee,
his arms bustling with roses
as he escorts me through the pearly gates.

I felt myself jerk with unfulfilled muscle memory today
My hands are trying to complete a job
that’s already done
How to say it’s time to let go
I only have one real way of telling them to stop
And if that’s out, there are no more ways through

She grows her hair long
Twists it into a ravishing braid

Tethers it to the wooden frame
Leaps from the tower window

Plumets toward the ground
Inches from impact snaps to a stop

Clips her locks                                               Never looks back

Just signed up for another 
self-imposed challenge to write…
10k during July
How is it that I can write
50k in November while working full-time
(plus grad school in certain years)
but 10k in the summer is more dauting
even while writing with
creative writing camp kids?
Busy people get things done.
Summer is for reading and 
camp 
and some 
writing. 

Some. 

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

— Billy Shakes, AS YOU LIKE IT

i. The infant
How I wish I knew them then,
those young parents, who gave up
sleep and so much else just for me. 

ii. The boy
Alone in books and imagination,
the omnipotent master of Fisher-Price kingdoms,
countin’ ’em down with Casey Kasem.

iii. The teen
A never-ending stream of talking,
at contests, finally with friends, on stages —
the plotline of life drawn here in eraseable pen.

iv. The young adult
Asteadystreamofworkfromdawntodusk
andthensomemoreworkandoccasionalfun
butmostlyworkandwordswithoutcease.

v. The adulting adult
Suddenly, we two are one, together
on the roller coaster,
eyes opened and closed, frightened with glee.

vi. The widower
In grief, in yoga, finding balance,
finding peace, sweating through,
but always building core strength.

vii. The present
Loved and loving back, and grateful,
working for words and forward,
hoping Billy undercounted.

But there was a fire in the distance.
A spark,
a spirit a spoken word of sorrow.

It was a faint flicker of feeling,
of fire, of flame. That sparked a spirit,
after a spoken word of sorrow.

A dousing of damp drowning rain,
A spoken word of sorrow smothering,
the spirit of the flame.

But the flowers bloomed,
the fire, was started.

After the rain and pain of that,
word of sorrow shouted out,
spoken and solemn.

Though the faint flicker of light,
of fire was in the distance that flame it was far away,
it gave me a feeling of hope,
a spark more than a spark a spirit to fly away with after a dousing drowning rain,
that smothered the fire of a spoken, shouted word of sorrow rain that died after,
after,
it poured and doused drowning all spark that could flame a spirit, dripping the ice cream out of the cone and onto the hard asphalt ground making my clothes damp weighing me down. Even though I am on a tight rope rain weighing me down almost falling off like the ice cream out of the cone. I was deterimined and soon, the rain was gone.
It drained.
And I saw,
a fire in the distance.