When the gladiator starts walking
wordlessly into the pale horizon, hands
trailing in knee-deep grass, you know
this is movie shorthand for oh shit
he's dead and his soul is on the way
to the afterlife. My poet friend
messages me to say we are or should be
writing just for the sheer joy of creation
and being in conversation with the dead—
I agree one hundred percent. In that the world
constantly, intensely, makes us aware of our
own mortality, I guess you could say we are also
always in conversation with ourselves. These
are sober conversations, but sometimes
they can be ridiculous or foolish. Am I,
are you, most alive in words; or when,
at the height of pleasurably licking
the $5 tamarind popsicle at the farmers
market, the tangy sweet plops onto the hot
pavement in front of you? So sad, to lose
what you thought was safely in your grip.
Most everyone I ask about whether they
would live their whole lives over again exactly
the same way if given another chance say
yes, they would. Because if you touched
even one thread, one hair, it would no longer
be your life. Perhaps you'd be rid of all
the mediocre jobs and failed relationships,
but you'd no longer even be with the people
you know and love right now. And so I try
to sit in this field without panicking about
my dwindling years. Late afternoon light
gashes the tips of marsh grass, and I
try to forgive myself all the wrong
turns and missed connections.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
