Lesson from a Smug Corpse

They lie there,
Six feet under,
With a smug smile
Because they know
What
Happens
Next.

I study, pray, meditate
Dream, breathe, sweat
Retreat, listen, calculate,
Write, catalogue, and
Have no answer to
What
Happens
Next.

I live in the moment
Count my blessings
Practice the golden rule
Prepare, repair, despair, still
Clueless to
What
Happens
Next.

There below, left, abandoned.
Smeared smiles on rotting corpses.
The dearly departed previous occupants know
What
Happens
Next

happens.



An Attempt at Scientific Methods

I’ve seen gold haloed icons
Stained-glass stories
Hundreds of spires that reach
To tickle eternity.
I’ve touched centuries-old walls
Hiked remote forests
Screamed out loud, lost in vast canyons,
Laughed until I cried and
Cried and cried.

As a mad scientist
I dissect these memories frame by frame
Magnify their Technicolor images.
Culture the bits of faith
To reason the answer.

I pull the pen across this page
Thoughts appear in ink.
Content not yet considered
My eyes watch.
The mass of cells held within my skull synapse.
An anonymous exterior energy
Floods and fills my cerebral circuitry,
Washes down my arm to waiting fingers
That scribes these words:

“The life that waits
Is the glorious life that is.”





March 24, 2009