March 27, 2007

• New Poem: “Mortality”

   

  “Mortality”
  Poetry by Michael Nyiri
  3/27/07 7:28am pdt

   

  We only experience the pain of loss
  The dead cannot console us with their presence
  We don’t claim to understand
  No amount of care or grief can eradicate the
  final fact of life.

  We pray,
  We shed tears of sadness
  We embrace the memories of fullness
  which existed along with the lives of
  our deceased

  Impermanence is permanent
  Surprise and shock reign supreme
  Sadness, eloquence,
  Memory, sustenance
  Simple plans gone awry too often

  As the physical body ages,
  and as the sands of time
  fall through the glass
  ever faster
  and more erratic
  loss becomes normalcy
  eventually

  The longer one’s life exists,
  the more apt other lives are
  to cease this existence,
  until loss,
  although never mundane or routine
  seems somewhat normal
  as others who lived
  now do not.

  When the rapid amount of loss
  weighs heavy on the soul,
  grief turns to questioning again
  Even after decades of knowledge
  display to the living that mortality
  severs the cords of
  both the most righteous
  and the most callous
  Nothing prepares this life
  for the loss of another.

  And surely nothing prepares this life
  for the succeeding loss of yet
  another,
  and yet another.

  But time is not cognizant of mortality’s blade,
  and memory will soon become all that is
  left of another life, now deceased
  until memory dies
  and mortality appears on the doorstep
  with hat in hand

  The reaper is not a grim figure
  but a sullen sad and lonely cipher
  suddenly showing up to declare
  our mortality survives
  even as our lives are eradicated

  ---

  BEHIND THE POETRY: On March 8th, a coworker received news from the highway patrol that his brother was killed in a motorcycle accident on the freeway. He’d heard the news that there had been a wreck on the radio while driving to work, but didn’t know it was his brother until an officer at the scene called him on his cellphone from the phone number found on his brother’s corpse. His brother was 50.
  On March 20th, one of my technicians, whom I hired about 8 years ago, passed away after having recently been in the hospital. I just attended his funeral this past Saturday.
  This morning, I received an email from one of my best friends, with the subject: “It’s been a rough year.” He supplied a link to a web article. Both his parents died on Jan. 31st.  “The couple was found deceased after being stranded in the wilderness in Sierra County CA when on a routine Sunday drive.”
  My friend also used to work at the same place I do. Condolences are fitting, and everyone dies sooner or later. But it’s still a shock to the system. MFN

  • 10:57 am
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