desiderata #9

you are here
and then you are not.

someone else will live in your apartment,
someone else will live in your city,
someone else will go through all your stuff,
decide what to keep,
what to throw away.
someone will give your clothing to goodwill
and one day,
maybe sooner, maybe later,
that guy on the number 7 bus who has fish breath
will be wearing your shoes.

or, for this brief ecstatic moment,
while you are made of flesh and blood,
while you while breathe,
while you yet move,
you will throw drunken punches,
make love in a tangle of sheets,
bellow and roar after lightning strikes,
howl at the moon,
walk in the rain at midnight,
swim in the river at dawn,
and in a sudden flash of incandescence
exit the earth,
rising like a colossus to
tattoo the sky with all the white hot contrails
of your searing passions and blazing desires.

and then let the bus driver shake his head,
give a soft moan
and as he cranks the wheel say,
my god, there was a man.




[ from a photograph by rae kennedy - blackbirdstudio.ca ]