melissaahowells - The Knowledge...

I don't require
you to curry my ego
I write mostly to amuse myself
and to mark the passage of
my time and thoughts
because I'm compelled
to translate thoughts into sentences
which would otherwise be transient
thoughts in the night
or the collecting of dust
on the mantle
of years of my collective memory

my thoughts speak to me of
my existence
how I've endured
and I'm
at the doorstep...
but not yet out of time

its occurred to me
there's no spot on earth
where death may not have occurred
in some places it has likely occurred more often than others
death has become so commonplace
yet I find it uncommon
in its singular last breath

When I look around me
I see its shadow cast everywhere:
a run-over cat
a fragile dehydrated mouse corpse
a frozen hill of ants
a carelessly trampled flower
a crumpled pile of once green leaves
a discarded Christmas tree
the last fading rays of light rounding the final bend of earth
the evening gatherings of crows
the lost expression on a homeless man's face of my own generation
and on the fixed faces of silent bus riders
where memories of lost love
and the accumulation of a lifetime of disappointment
sometimes malinger
rendering the languisher
lost, missing in their thoughts...
paled with mourning at the remembering
of life
and its fading

empathy for a suffering world
often has its shortfalls
its pitfalls
even pratfalls
certainly not
the kindly windfalls of understanding
I was hoping for
waiting for
in breathless expectation

I wish observance was more like:
sitting Shiva
raising our glasses at the bar
keening aloud at the wake
or the sharing collective memories
which for me are fading chalk outlines of a shared past
for all of those who seem lost to us
or for what is altered and
irrevocably gone

I was so hoping for better
from myself
from so many
I'm buried in expectation

better to think on simplicity
on gratitude
in the now-ness of being
in the sounds of my love snoring beside me
in the gurgle-gurgling of the coffee churning
in the red light of morning
in the cawing of the crows who beg daily for my almonds
and in the certain knowledge
I am here now
for one more day of this.

LEGAL COPYRIGHT FOR THIS POEM/WORK
AND ALSO FOR THIS AUTHOR/WRITER
MELISSA A HOWELLS
AND ALSO FOR THIS LEGALLY COPYRIGHTED SITE TITLE
MELOO STRAIGHT FROM HER TILT-A-WORLD

10:31PM PST NOVEMBER 13 2017/MONDAY EVENING
TIME DATE STAMPED.
dedication:
thank you Buddy for the inspiring phrase
which set these thoughts and this poem into motion
and emotion.

edited January 11, 2018 with better descriptors
and for greater clarity 8:45am PST