dying in the springtime

[jsol]

can you lift me in your arms
and place my body among the juicy earthen
awakening of spring?

it is my time of no more clocks
and it is my speech of no more words
it is the barging in of an empty wind, gusting
as it curses the final vestiges of winter
where the cold night will no longer arrive
and the foliage will bloom
and the waters flow

my friends can you lift me now?
as my legs have failed to hold me upright
and i must look at your busy feet
bustling through the last light of day
sharp and ringing with the voice and the
warm sun's touch

lift me by the fire so that i may sing
the songs of youth and promise
and so that the world of a young man
may live again in the past remembrances
as they remain - still!

still! they cry out for the forgotten egg and the
long and breathless night
still! they dance like the tall pampa grasses in the
breezes of summer, ringing in my heart like bells
and the seagulls with their constant throats of noise

my friends! oh my friends i am dying and
i will miss you like the traveler of deserts misses water.
i will miss you in ways beyond what i can understand
and i promise that my life will come again
and with it bring some benefit to you all
so that you may be alive in your living.
so that in your being you may be aware of your life.
let that be my wish for you, my friends.

know that everything is a gift and
the giving of gifts must be thanked.
in the limestone cliffs
and the tall forests there are so many things
we do not know and they are all within us.
providing the life that we call ours
though it is not ours to keep.
for a time we borrow it and then we must leave
behind that which we have done,
as it will live forever in the deep gypsum places
of the dark world where light
is not needed

so once more let us celebrate!
my dear friends and let our blood grow succulent with
the earnestness of living the one life of
the planet and the seas

there is no room for vagueness of superstition
there is no place for quiet sadness
there is no need for mourning
for me death is here to take me where i do not know
and i am happy in the sad finality of this

it is a sad finality, it is a sad casket that
will be lowered with my bones
into the soil and tears will come from the eyes
of those who knew me and those who loved me
and maybe laughter too
will come like unexpected raindrops falling

and the leaves will scatter and the
fires burn and the greatest moment of all
will come in which death will pry from my fingers
all that i try to hold on to like i may be able to sneak
it in if my hand is behind my back

no, i will take nothing
and you will have only your memories
and your little smiles like bending flowers
and your tears like tea boiling over

and i will be gone
i do not know what awaits
but i am glad that i have lived
like the paintbrush smoothly
stroking the canvass even the roughness of my life
was like a calm river

and i thank you, my friends, my dearest loves
i thank you for my life


// thought i'd add a little footnote: i've been quite depressed lately. reading many books and pouring over art histories of a certain time period. last fall and winter it was the "existentialism" of nietzche and heidegger, sartre, derrida and foucoult. before that it was alan watts and roshi philip kapleau, gary snyder, kerouac and ginsberg and their spritual quasi-buddhist ideas. before that it was cormarc mccarthy and tony morrision and john kennedy toole and so many more who built the rich life of their soaring novels. but as this winter has turned into spring i have been overtaken by the meanings, the consequences, the doubts, the horrors and the complete intermingling of life and death as they occurred in WWI or the great war, as that generation called it. i have been so fascinated with the making of armies, the blatant robbery of any meaning life may have had from the youth who are drafted to fight, the horrible ways in which they suffered and the utter meaninglessness of it all. i must give it meaning through the understanding that can and will eventually come. i post this in OM board 'cause i just wrote it without any thought, preamble or anything. i just wrote it. it was a catharsis of all that i have put myself through in order to understand. i don't expect anyone to understand why i crave the essences of things, i don't understand. it isn't always pleasant by any means at all. i just usually think about something for 6 moths to a years and then move on to the next thing that interests me.

[davidifox]

jsol,
Wow! What a poem t have written with any thought! I'm impressed!
~davidifox

[sparky21737]

Wow, this is just wow. It was so beautiful and sad and peaceful and just so many emotions rolled into one with so many beautiful words and images. A truly impressive OM thanks so much for sharing

[A.k.ChaosDream]

you are right, my friend, but i might add that i find
light an event in which you might be remade 'like sand'
just to blend in the show of hands that arent hands
but fingers press the mold of time and space into a
bowl of superglue. crazy as i may, i lay my heart to bullets.
known to pain by my name and shoe size; im sorry for my game
but the plain just aint my style, im just dumb-looking doing things
how 'everybody's doing' - you know, do ya ?! when the four walls crawl
like the fur of your neck on the midnight floor, faking the world to
smithereens!

great voice in this one, bro
cheers
A.
k

[BarryC]

amazing work-deserves the spotlight