Missing you isn’t just an empty void — it’s what-ifs and questions and endless thoughts and bittersweet memories and runaway feelings and emotions that can’t get a hold on anything physical so just slip and slide around my mind, and hide and re-emerge.
death
The Unripened Old
Youth fears death,
For the blossom longs to be fruit.
But the fruit that is ripened by age
Loves Autumn’s west wind
And laughs, falling…
Only the unripened old fear to go.
—James Oppenheim (1882–1932), “The Unripened Old,” War and Laughter, 1916
Sessile
Life is a dance of balance.
Life is creative falling.
Life is half spent getting back up.
Life is learning to dance with a partner —
and learning to dance without a partner,
and letting go enough to dance in the crowd.
Life is a freestyle jig.
Life is a twirl and a bow.
Life is the best dance you’ve ever danced
and the only chance you’ll get, so dance!
Death is your dancing soul returning to the heavens.
To be continued
life blooms right through death
and they beautify each other
Sick day
Some days we can only hope
that Death has called in sick.
Forever…
as inevitable as
aging and taxes —
death is no longer
the surety it was
Vanished
i hurt every day remembering
that i wasn’t there for you
the hardest day of suffering
— i left you painfully alone
when you needed me most
so damn close, but not there
which is the farthest away —
i was a fool, oblivious numbskull
a frozen hearted ragdoll zombie
i am sorry.
Continuous
Nature grows beautiful new life over old scars.
Inescapable
Nothing begins, and nothing ends,
That is not paid with moan;
For we are born in others’ pain,
And perish in our own.
—Francis Thompson, from “Daisy,” 1892–1894
Understanding death
I read an article stating that cats don’t understand death the way humans do, so they don’t fear it like we do — I think they understand better than
Shadows long after light is gone
end of life decisions
seep grieving guilt
into every crack
of broken hearts—
life is the always
ultimate sacredness
and to play god
feels sacrilegious—
even the right decision
reverberates as wrong
Cycles
Death recycles life
Life recycles death