There is what it is. Just one.
And those who choose to stay near it, rest near what it is.
And those who wander away can only come to more of what is not.
And, because it is what is not, it is more and more fraught with less than what it is.
What it is is not wonderful – it just is what it is – with all of its mortality, aging, meaninglessness and death.
Things cannot get better than what it is. Beyond what it is lies only dreams, illusions, hopes and fears.
Death is inevitable, and it isn’t so sad,
except that we cared.
Raised children, loved others,
and loved our lives.
I don’t think of my death, it doesn’t matter much
because I won’t be here.
But when I think of the richness of others,
it hurts.
All the years of caring, building, and loving,
swept away by the inevitability of mortality.
But I am just feeling what their loss means to me.
They won’t be here anymore.
Why should we care and persist
in a place of such implacable swinging doors?
But, we have no choice, mortal or not.
We love and feel and care, and we spend the time we have.
How then, to encourage the child who loves
and knows nothing of all of this?
How then, to love the people you love,
even as you feel time moving behind every moment?
Blessed and doomed, trusting and dead,
we are momentary bursts of awareness,
bits of lightning in an implacable darkness.
Is it any wonder that I both love and cry?
gallagher
14Dec23
Christchurch
If you walk to the end of the road and look, with a steely gaze
only the endless is’ness looks back.
All our dreams are simply self reflections.
Just mirrors held in the hands of the hopeful transient.
Herein lies the last stand of the mediators and the acceptors.
The end of all stories.
Can you say how it is … to capture nothing in a bottle?
To disperse the dreams of other unwilling mortals?
And can you embrace the end
of that very thing
which would capture the view?
Such a long road to travel
just to come to the end of illusions
and no treasure there to discover,
but simply what it is.
gallagher
14Dec23 #2
Christchurch