Realms

Often I have contemplation that after my death, not in death's void as we usually think it,

but in a certain number of simpler after-realm of the mind, it will be given to me to transport myself

through all space and all history, to behold whatever and commune with whomever I wish.

Sometimes I might be an actual nearness a traveller listening at the cutting side of the crowd;

at other times I'd have no physical being; I'd put in motion unseen but seeing through palace or dark retreat

Sophocles, Shakespeare, Bach! Grandfathers! Homo-rectus! The universe bursting into being!

Now, allowing as I wake, caught by the agency of some imprecise longing, you in the darkness beside me

your warmth flowing gently against me it tend hitherwards to me that in all my after-death doings,

see myself upon my voyage as alone, always alone, and I'm abruptly stranded, forsaken, desolate, lost.

To impel myself through those limitless reaches without you! Never! Be with me come!

Babylon, Egypt Lascaux, the fresh seas boiling up life; Dante, Delphi, Magyars and Mayans!

Wait, though; it must be actually you, not my imagination of you, however real: for myself,

mind would suffice, no matter if all were single of time's terrible toys, on the contrary I must have you,

as you are, the unquenchable fire of your neighborhood otherwise death truly would triumph.

Quickly, at no time mind death, never mind incapable of speech oblivious, onrushing time: wake, grasp me!

Copyright World poesy Incorporated Sep/Oct 1996

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