I'm Going to Die

I'm going to die
And I'm okay with that,
Because so are you.

If I alone were bound to this fate,
The first and last to feel death's icy breath,
My body alone to enter the earth—
In a graveyard of one—
I probably wouldn't be okay with it,
But I'd likely be rather disgruntled.

I'd feel cheated,
Seeing all the children on the playground
Jumping around and squealing—
Knowing that my own jumps and squeals
Would last only a lifetime.

I'd likely spend a lot more time
Thinking about death,
Puzzling over its causes and workings—
Its philosophy and physiology—
Than I do now.

As a child
I probably would have sat at dinner,
Looking down at my plate,
Twisting my noodles with my fork
Around and under
Around and under
In an existential manner.

When I felt enough courage,
I'd look up and ask my silent parents
Why I alone must go
Instead of growing old forever.

They would then look—
Not at me—
But at each other,
With that look of worry
Created from the lack of something profound and consoling to say
When they most needed it.

But since this is not the case,
My mother looks at me across the table
And kindly says,
"Everybody's going to die."
And we all smile at each other
And continue eating.

The Math to Everything

They say there’s a math to poetry that the math men know nothing about.  There’s a math to the universe that will tell why the sky is blue, and blood is scarlet, and the sea changes from black to green to white.  It explains why trees have leaves, and why leaves have lines, and why there are so many or so few.  It explains why the world is a circle when gold grows in squares, the mountains are pointed, and people are almost like stars. Not only does it tell why each rock rests exactly where it does, why each tree sprouted exactly where it grows, and why this grass blade is as dark as a forest while its brother is brown as the sand—but it tells why all of this together, with the white touching the blue touching the brown, black, and green, is more beautiful than anything that could have come from a palette or pencil.

Now I Know

When I was taken outside for the very first time, I saw the sun and it burned holes into my eyes, and the pain filled them with tears.  But now I can see the grass in the ground, and how the green springs from the brown, but only slowly.  Now I know that the roads are smooth and wet when they start, but as they grow old they harden, and crack when the earth shakes.  Now I know that the bats swoop in the dark to catch bugs in their mouths, which they smelled with their ears.  I know that things like honey and webs can be made, but only after hours of hard work—and that things like cardboard and metal are often used in place of wood and stone.  I know now that pigeons gather where the people gather, and that giant squids stay where no one will go.  I know there are indeed flies made of fire, and of butter, and horses and houses and deer.  I know that hummingbirds really don't know how to hum, and that beetles secretly have wings.  I know that when the sky is bright and blue, millions of bright lights are hidden from view, and they only appear after darkness has fallen.  And I know that as things grow old, they begin to die—even the stars—and that the only thing capable of growing young again, though it often doesn't, is the human heart.

My Something

My something
Is not much
But it is a something.

Because His everything
Is everything
To me.

And my something
Is a something
To Him.

If His everything
Allows my something
To be a something,

Then how I must make
Everyone's somethings
My everything.

A Passing Thought

I have been pondering for a long time over how I am to make the most possible use of my life for the good of the world. The scope of the question and its implications is daunting, which makes me tend to shy away from reaching any decisive conclusions. I have read pages upon pages searching for the answer. I live a life that I consider a decent enough back-eddy to keep me while I wait out the answer, before I plunge any farther down the stream to which I am blind. I feel in my yearning heart that my journey is somehow worthy of spectators, when reason scoffs at the suggestion. In the end, I am just another 22-year-old boy, bereft of any noteworthy experience, secretly hoping to one day be one of the men whose life is counted as worthy of being eternally stored between an attractive set of bookends.

Mother's Day

The Lanyard, by Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

Consecration

How beautiful the day will be when we are all joined in hands in perfect consecration.  On that day, there will be singing in perfect harmony and children will finally see adults as they see everyone else.  No one will say don’t, or get off, or get out, or stay away.  Everyone will make their meals with the front and back doors open, and it won't matter who made your food yesterday because you’ll be making food for everyone today.

Why does that day have to come later?  Why didn’t it begin this morning?  Maybe it did, and I didn’t know it.  I will go and give myself to my fellow beings, I will serve them thoughtfully and tell them they are important.  I won’t wait for them to tell me that I’m important back.  I will tell everyone that we live in an age where everything is common between us all.  No one will tell us to stay away.  We will be unified.