Remember our mortality

On Friday I went to a funeral.  Barbara died suddenly and unexpectedly.  There was sadness, some anger and so many untidy loose ends.   The scythed shadow has fallen over all my thoughts since, but it is so hard to articulate the fractured thoughts, feelings and impressions.   This poem tries to bind some thoughts.  Mortality must not be forgotten, today and tomorrow will not always follow.  It is not healthy to dwell on death, yet it is unhealthy not to acknowledge death and include it in our approach to life.  I was not close enough to Barbara for her passing to really impact me on a deep level but I felt sorrow for those she left behind.  This poem is therefore not about her but about death in general.

At my final hour

At the curtain’s fall

The echoes of experience

Shall fill this empty hall

A snowy night in New York City

Imperfect verse and poetry

Music in a smoky bar

Scenery flashing from the car

Warmth within loves embrace

Time’s art drawn upon my face

I shall be the sum of circumstance

The when

the why

The how

Product of so many paths

Which culminate

In now

What will you remember?

My folly and my faults?

The times I let you down?

Failed in deeds and thoughts?

Was there enough closeness?

Did I do enough?

Enough to clothe your memories

In humour and in love?

At the closing hour

Of the final day

My legacy shall be

a messy lump of clay

A half drawn sketch

a tattered page

incomplete prose

unpolished to

rhyme and rhythm

loose ends