To those dead on public transport,
we do not judge.
Perhaps you do not know, and not knowing
is just a vacant compartment that the Clerk
Of All Knowledge fills with folded messages.
The various vacuum attachments,
marrow spoons,
foreign capitols,
all may confound and confuse.
Majestic death takes its place with these.
To those dead on public transport,
you needn't concern yourselves further
with stops,
schedules,
responsibilities,
or other petty matters.
Your destination has come to you instead.
Have no worries about your husk of flesh.
If muscles relax and give way,
water is the same whether in glass or lake;
soil the same whether in pot or prairie.
If others snicker,
they have forgotten their own beginnings.
To those dead on public transport,
this bulb, this skin,
this womb in which you gestated
now opens.
You emerge.
It is not the end, but merely the end of the beginning.
You need do nothing but exist vividly,
God's bauble,
taken up,
cut and polished,
worn with pride,
shining brightly.
_________
for Sunday Muse #188
Oh Shay you have done it again; said what no one else could have. Life death and all the petty matters in-between have been brought before our eyes with so much creative vision! Every stanza full with truths we avoid being busy with the petty. You are the queen of the magnificent metaphor! I especially love "it is not the end but merely the end of the beginning."... one of so many deep and wonderful lines my friend!!
ReplyDeletePretty sure I heard that "end of the beginning" line some place, but couldn't tell you where. I'm so glad you like this.
Delete"To those dead on public transport": You get a Pulitzer, a Booker, and a Nobel just for this one phrase. Astonishing. As is all that comes after.
ReplyDeletePax,
Dora
*scoops up my hardware and preens quietly*
Delete“You need do nothing but exist vividly” ... I love that. I’m always looking for some nugget of philosophy hidden in poetry to take up and live by. Honestly, I have lost my vivid. I watched it happen to my mom, and she got hers back. So I hope the same happens for me one day, but it doesn’t feel like it will be soon.
ReplyDeleteYou never know. it could take you by surprise.
DeleteThat’s the thing about being bipolar (and/or premenopausal). Every insane mood swing is so darn drastic. Yesterday morning, I was bouncing off the walls. Last night, I almost took my husband’s head off over dog hair. I’ve learned to treasure the calm, boring version of myself. She is by far the easiest to live with.
DeleteJust taking a moment to sit with this...in the dark, with the dogs, and cry. This is the kind of comfort that skims the pain and releases it.
ReplyDeleteDogs are experts on this. They know to stay close and remain helpfully silent.
DeleteAnother one for the next book. The images here hold both a deep acuity, and a comfort. Each stanza speaks to the heart and to the mind. Death becomes not an indignity, as it might be in tbese circumstances, but a transcendence. Rich, in every way, and beautiful. Just one of your best.
ReplyDeleteI made a blunder yesterday--nothing major, but embarrassing--and so I wrote this poem just to tell myself, "It's all right, you are made of stardust." When you say it is one of my best, dear BFF, you know very well how much that means to me.
DeleteSo nice to read, Shay.
ReplyDeletePoor soul. Reminds me of a time, not always bad, when I was on opioids for pain. I would even sleep while waiting at the green light. Everyone else would drive around and leave me sitting there. No one ever honked then but they did when I would run a red light.
..
"To those dead on public transport" - I love that whole idea so much, and the way you rode out all the stops to Far Rockaway. God's bauble!!!
ReplyDeleteI feel like I read this when you posted it, but was swept off with tasks, and it deserves some retrospective praise. It’s fucking great.
ReplyDelete