“If I should die before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take”.

Preamble

The first proposition is a certainty.

I don’t have much more to add to the debate.

The second is a little more problematic.

Except for the wave of grief

Spreading out in diminishing circles,

And for this I apologize in advance.

Although I may be overestimating

My worth and the distance

That wave would travel.

If at all possible,

I would depart with but one regret

On everyone’s lips:

“ He brought the Southern Comfort

But wouldn’t share his Scotch.”

How does this game play out?

Of stars I was made

And to the stars I will return

After a corporeal SPACE-X RUD

( Rapid Unplanned Disassembly ).

Rapid

I sincerely hope that it’s ending

Will be as rapid as its beginning,

Like a magician’s disappearing rabbit,

One moment it’s there.

Then a skillful wave of his wand

And little misdirection.

It’s gone in a flash of powder and fire

To go wherever magicians’ bunnies go

When they’re not required on stage,

Destination, unknown.

Bunny heaven, or bunny hell,

Or bunny purgatory,

Or just No Bunny?

Here’s where things get a little fuzzy.

What do subatomic bunny bits look like?

Oddly, the same as you and me.

Doesn’t seem to matter much

To the bunny.

It doesn’t matter much to me,

But you never know.

This brief moment has seemed very rapid indeed.

Not even a tick on the cosmic clock

And I have slipped into that stage in life

Called (gasp) nostalgia.

Unplanned

I don’t know what my parents were thinking,

Likely nothing at all at that moment.

But their timing was impeccable,

One before shipping overseas

And another after returning home

A little the worse for wear.

War has a tendency to do that.

Many returned with wounds not so visible,

But equally deep and painful.

I was given an unprecedented opportunity

To live through (and survive) the turbulent 60s.

In retrospect, it too was gone in a flash

And I squandered much of it.

But only the good parts stick in my mind.

Disassembly

This planet and all the myriad life it hosts

Was born of many supernovae

Across the universe.

Even life’s cradle,

These oceans, rocks, seas and clouds

Are naught but the detritus

Of another’s death.

There must be some nugget of truth there.

Finding it is my life’s work.

To that end,

No fiery end for me,

An unrecognizable pile of

Ash that could well have been swept

From the fireplace grate

To sit on someone’s shelf

And slowly gather dust.

No lead-lined box, guaranteed to preserve

This morbid, mortal coil.

Rather, wrap these remains among the roots

Of a budding apple tree

And let me feed future generations.

I ask nothing more.

Post-amble ?

I have spent most of my life

Pondering these certainties.

And am now no closer to an answer

Than when I began.

True: I have more words at my disposal

To juggle or to make something new.

But if the question is plain and direct,

So should the answer be.

Yet every time I try

I endure a small, personal RUD.

Roll that piece of paper into a ball

And toss it in the can of Bad Ideas.

Except for when the very occasional,

And extremely rare, nugget

(In the author’s humble opinion)

Drops into my pan

Or washes out in the sluice.

These nuggets were birthed

Somewhere beyond our ken,

Presented to us to fight over

Or to cherish.

I’ve done a bit of both.

My goal,

My aim,

My ambition,

My given task

Is to search for a nugget of gold

In a sea of strife

And exploding stars

And understand how it came to be.

I’m still looking.