Friday, June 28, 2013

A Few Words on Dying

The last words are never right,
the moment, when you look at someone,
whom your heart is tied inextricably to,
and then, without notice, without forewarn
they expire.
You always think you could have said more,
told them how much they had affected your life,
how much they meant to you,
instead you can't remember if you said, “I love you” or not.


It is not the last words, but rather, the life lived.
Do not concern yourself with saying goodbye,
the time to grieve will come,
hold off while they are still holding on.
Holding them, while even a trickle of vitality
lingers in their hand to hold yours.
Those last moments,
the moments you will never forget,
are but a pause and heartache.


Should we let the last images
our father, our mother, our child
sees be the desperation of two helpless hands,
the anguish of eyes straining to notice every detail
the complete, utter abandoned of self;
dropping all pretence of dignity and wrapping
ourselves in a blanket of raw grief.
Our attitude is misconstrued with the dying,
refusing to accept the inevitable
we may end up causing panic and fear to
fill those last gasps of air,
as the dying moves on.


Reserve this time for squeezing hands tight,
for remembering the life lived
and how that life lives on in you.
A person dies, a body is buried
but the pieces left behind reside
in those that were lucky enough to
share in that life before it faded and went on.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Renewing the old Gift

I stand in silent stills,
photographed in black and white
waiting for dreams to coalesce with the spirit
and transform into color.
Waiting, for action.
Action speaks,
but speaking does not action ignite.
A spark. It requires; that infant child
of fire, so often extinguished before it can
fulfill a promise made when Prometheus
first broke the law of Gods and gave hope to man.

But, when a spark serendipitously finds the right dream,
the right idea,
a miracle occurs, small light becomes luminous,
filling not only the surrounding void,
but an unnoticed void in hearts and minds.
True fire spreads.

Our mortal limitations oft prevent us from
seeing the simplicity of change.
We think in grandiose terms,
and with those Titans looming over head,
cower in their shadow and concede that one
soul cannot change the world, cannot cause
the tide to shift and oceans to rise.

Doubt is the devil we have created;
for shame, for convenience and for fear.
Fear of failure and ridicule.
One spark may not immediately proffer
the change our chained souls grave.
But a word, a gesture, can spread
from one fire maker to the next.
And, with time, in time the world
is not as it was before, and we are more
than, in the beginning, we believed we could ever be.

Friday, June 7, 2013

The Things I See When You are Looking Away

I know you now,
not just the landscape of your body
though I know it well.
The twists and turns,
the smooth curves that lead to places
where dreams and visceral reality form a close bond.
I know you,
as the sea knows the beaches it visits
in repetition on constant change.
One continually changing the shape and texture
of the other,
the other changing the flows and force
of the one.
I know the voice that echoes
within the chambers of my heart,
laughter that sprays onto the high, dry places
bringing sweet relief to old sorrows.
I know you, as we dance.
This eternal waltz that has been back and forth
long before my first wave caressed those foreign shores.
I knew you before the first drop that formed me,
before the first grain that formed you.
We have always been, even before we were
and will be, after our memory has dwindled.
Our echoes reach out into the void
in all directions.