fallen verses

Early morning thoughts on death

I have no idea why, on this morning made earlier by the time change, I was thinking about death. Specifically mine. I have no reason to believe it’ll be happening soon, but whatever. Now, get ready to look at me as if I’m nuts. I want to live forever. Not in the crazy Highlander sort of way, but really. I would love to see how humanity changes as time goes, how our cultures and societies change to survive themselves. How people view choice, consequences, responsibilities when their next ten-thousand years is on the line. These ideas fascinate me and I would love to see the answers unfold. That being said, I realize it is unlikely. Science, at the moment, isn’t capable of making this happen, so, in however many years it will be, I will die. I don’t really fear death. As an atheist (more or less) I think it’s just the end, done, over, blah. I imagine dieing may be unpleasant. The only tragedy there is that I will not be able to use the experience in my writing. Then there’s this corpse sitting around. I don’t like the idea of having my body hermetically sealed away and rotting. I don’t really like the idea of being turned to ash, either. I heard once about some Scandinavian country (I think) turning bodies into fertilizer and planting trees in ‘em. I like that one, and it prompted this poem (still a tad rough):

Viscera / Ephemera

The perfect blossom is a rare thing,
you could spend your life looking for one
and it would not be a wasted life.
The Last Samurai

Such silly flesh
for such luminous minds:
white steel of the skeleton,
red cords of the muscle.

We are all born of star matter,
conceived in heat and passion.
A fusion explosion kept
by a web of neuron and synapse
contained and focused.
Like a lantern,
I shine light in these pages.
These bits on the screen
like shadows in Hiroshima.

After the slow burn,
when I am carbon, salt,
and assorted heavy elements,
take and make of me a cherry tree:
blossoms beautiful and ephemeral.
“They are all perfect.”