The Trick to Death


The trick is to die before you die.


Again and again and again.


Watching my ego float in space

Feeling its stories in my body

Matter and movement

Named only by humans

Like blots of ink on paper

All to be faded by the sun


Still we rebel against entropy

Still we make art with our lives

Composing matter

Redirecting movement

Marking the page

Labeling and assigning

This is that, that is this

This is pretty, this is not

I want this, I don’t want that

This! This is me, mine

Hoping, hoping

It will last.

It won’t.


But even when we remember,

Even when we see

the empty page for what it is,

that sheet of white that holds us

The matter-less nothing beneath the

Shapes and colors

Even then, we can’t help but fall for the joy of splattering ink, admiring the forms, watching them play


Look! Look! Look who I made myself to be, look what I did with this life, look!!

Matter dancing in delight

Waiting to be seen,

Loved,

Appreciated.


And so,

the story goes,

She sees herself.

She sees the emptiness of her dance,

Stretched out in time and space

And understands

This I am not, that I am not

Not-I , Not -I, Not-I

And dissolves into the matter-less nothing

Giving up the dance

Dying

And returning to only that which lasts

Only that which out lives the sun,

Love.


May we all die before we die.

Lighthouse