Life and Death – bendingtheneedle

On a Dime

Flipping between channels this morning.

Ja Morant dunk highlights and Ukrainians struggling for their lives.

NFL Draft teasers and Russian Cruise Missiles blasting into apartment buildings.

Safe in my power recliner, sipping hot coffee, my snoring dog at my feet.

Just a few weeks ago, like me, Ukrainians lived their lives peacefully.

I imagine my Ukrainian counterpart sitting in his apartment, watching TV, petting his cat, enjoying life’s simple pleasures.

Life can turn on a dime, especially after 4 years of an American president heaping praise on autocratic dictators – softening the ground for anti-democratic movements around the globe, lauding dictators for their “strength” while bashing long-standing alliances.

If you think what is happening in Ukraine today can’t happen in America tomorrow, you’re kidding yourself.

There are anti-democratic forces in congress, and the de facto leader of the Republican party continues to praise and refuses to denounce a murderous thug’s invasion of Ukraine.

Keep this in mind when heading to the ballot box in 2022 and 2024.

Gravely Still

Not a single mourner in the mist

No priest to say “And now we pray”

Just a casket

a freshly dug hole

two gravediggers and a crow

Cold enough to see your breath

But warm enough to dodge the mausoleum

No one in attendance

No one to toss that first handful of dirt

signifying the end of earthly ties to the living

I imagine a nattily attired corpse

still able to hear

Weeping at the silence

Embarrassed and dismayed at the poor showing

The muffled mummers

of the two unknown grave diggers

the very last voices he hears

a faint and fading

“Rest in Peace, Bro” followed by

“Do you want to grab a coffee at Dunkin?”

As a smile comes over his face

Relentless Time Regardless

We begin life nervously

Waiting in the wings

Queued up and ready to take center stage

each of us a rusty fragile link

in a fractious chain of humans

We embark on our quixotic quest

for meaning and connection

The truth of our transience

evades us at first

Or maybe we just refuse to let it creep in

We keep those thoughts at bay

We bury them under daily routine

for years at a time

Until we begin to sense

the slowing of the merry-go-round

and we see and feel

the snarled and toothy grin

of the carney worker

All rides must end

We lean hard from our painted ponies

Elbow pit married to the pole

We reach and stretch for the brass ring

And it’s promise of another ride

As if more ride is a cure-all

it isn’t

As if more time will sand the jagged edge

of disappointment and regret

It won’t.

We don’t need more time.

We need understand how little we have of it