A Meditation

Nothing so brings the spirit of reflection

upon the present moment

as the subject of dying, death

like some drawstring keeping feelings

and thoughts, remembering and forgetting,

memories from easily slipping out

as when death is not considered they scatter.

As if, somehow, no temptation

is great enough to move us from 

beneath the branches of the tree

of life and death.

                           How fleet afoot does time

then more truly seem when years

feel like compressed hours of meaning,

when desire and longing cannot

be satisfied.

                So I find myself there, here

in that funk when the fact of death

is as strong as the fact of life,

maybe a little more so because

time is no longer aligned so strongly

with life.

               Some say to consider death

more often would make a richer life;

I don't know.

                  What I do know is anything

that takes away from living is a death

and if we have but one life,

one death I know what I'm doing,

what contemplation is mine,

what moves me to be and do and love.

See how that works?

This poem began with some pontification

regarding dying and death

                                          and the only thing

I can conclude is being alive

and loving is the only thing to do.

-Byron Hoot