note to self ...

 

 

 

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We took such care of tomorrow but died on the way there.

—Warsan Shire

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via datura

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who shall say?

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via datura




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requiem for a friend (excerpt)

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I have my dead, and I have let them go,
and was amazed to see them so contented,
so soon at home in being dead, so cheerful,
so unlike their reputation.  Only you
return; brush past me, loiter, try to knock
against something, so that the sound reveals
your presence.  Oh don't take from me what I
am slowly learning.  I'm sure you have gone astray
it you are moved to homesickness for anything
in this dimension.  We transform these Things;
they aren't real, they are only the reflections
upon the polished surface of our being.

–Rainer Maria Rilke

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via datura

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Obituary

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Just once, you say,
you'd like to see
an obituary in which
the deceased didn't succumb
after "a heroic struggle" with cancer,
or heart disease, or Alzheimer's, or
whatever it was
that finally took him down.

Just once, you say,
couldn't the obit read:
He got sick and quit.
He gave up the ghost.
He put up no fight at all.
Rolled over. Bailed out.
Got out while the getting was good.
Excused himself from life's feast.

You're making a joke and
I laugh, though you can't know
I'm considering exactly that:
no radical prostatectomy for me,
no matter what General Practitioner
and Major Oncologist may say.

I think, let that walnut-sized
pipsqueak have its way with me,
that pebble in cancer's slingshot
that brings dim Goliath down.

So, old friend, before I go
and take all the wide world with me,
I want you to know
I picked up the tip.
I skipped the main course,
I'm here in the punch line.
Old friend, the joke's on me.


—Ronald Wallace

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Yama (Sanskrit: यम) or Yamarāja (यमराज) is the god of death, belonging to an early stratum of Vedic mythology. In the Vedas, Yama is said to have been the first mortal who died. By virtue of precedence, he became the ruler of the departed ...

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via vivre !

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here i am

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via vivre !

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otherwise

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I got out of bed

on two strong legs.

It might have been

otherwise. I ate

cereal, sweet

milk, ripe, flawless

peach. It might

have been otherwise.

I took the dog uphill

to the birch wood.

All morning I did

the work I love.

At noon I lay down

with my mate. It might

have been otherwise.

We ate dinner together

at a table with silver

candlesticks. It might

have been otherwise.

I slept in a bed

in a room with paintings

on the walls, and

planned another day

just like this day.

But one day, I know,

it will be otherwise.

–Jane Kenyon 

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