sooner or later
his life will run him down
and he will lose
what he holds most dear.

the one thing
that has kept him going
given him reason during the day
and comfort
during the hour of the wolf
will slip from his grasp.

no beacon
no safe harbor
dead-eyed stranger in the mirror
old fool ground down by the days
slack skin staring into black
night after sleepless night
alone and drowning
in the far end of the pool.

(PDF version)

Creating a linear narrative with a list of accomplishments in the classic obituary format didn’t work for me either. As an alternative, I decided to approach the exercise as if my life had ended that very day and simply write whatever came to me in response to the event. Here is the result:

obituary 12-11-11

he was a horse of a different color
he was an army of one
he was a stone on a river bottom
he was a bird that fell out of the nest.

he was an A student
he was the smartest guy in the class
he was a tax deduction
he was a paycheck.

he was a castaway
a fugitive
a superhero
a cowboy
a jet pilot
a soldier
a time traveler
a family of astronauts
a secret identity.

he was an alien from another planet
who fell to earth.

he felt confused a lot
he felt like he didn’t belong
he felt like something was missing
he couldn’t wait to grow up
even after he grew up.

he fell in love with women
who didn’t love him back
he fell in love with women
who lied to him
he fell in love with women
who cheated on him
he fell in love with women
who didn’t appreciate him
he fell in love with women
who couldn’t see him
or let him be who he was.

he lived for 15 years without loving anyone at all
(he never saw that one coming)
he kept trying
he got tired of trying
and sometimes he stopped trying
but he never stopped looking.

he wanted to help
he wanted to make a difference
he wanted everything to be better
for everybody
he couldn’t understand why people lied
so much and so often
when it took so little effort
to tell the truth
he couldn’t understand why people were
so mean to one another
when it took so little effort
to be kind.

he was a prisoner
he was a punching bag
he was a scapegoat
he was an exile.

he was a flower in a jar
a damaged romance
a beast in the night
a cave full of bats.

he put it all on the line
he gave everything he had
to everything he did
he lived at the edges of his edges
he fell many times
and was broken many times
in many ways
but he always got back up.

he was a sand castle in a tsunami
a beam of moonlight landing on a blade of grass
an erupting volcano
a still mountain stream
a quiet moment that passed
in the twilight.

now the wave that brought him here
has taken him back
he was ahead of his time
he was ahead of the pack
he was never sure he mattered at all
but he did.

(PDF version)

For reasons I can’t fully articulate or even understand, this poem feels incredibly personal to me and I feel incredibly vulnerable, almost naked, sharing it. I declined to share it in the men’s group the first time we brought our obituaries in for discussion, saying I was unhappy with mine and planned to rewrite it. However, there was no rewrite because when I sat with the task, nothing else ever came through, and I finally decided that what I’d written must be what I was supposed to write at this time.

I would still like to write that rosy “dreams fulfilled late in life” obit, and maybe I will at some point, but I guess I had to write this one first.

I’ve posted some preview material on my web site at rickbelden.com/new_book, including an excerpt from the introduction and some of the poems that appear in the book.

I’m also making preview copies of the complete manuscript available to those who’d like an early look. Please see rickbelden.com/new_book for information about getting a preview copy.

today I don’t poison myself for a pension
today I don’t soil my spirit
today I don’t split my soul.

yesterday I was
lightning in a bottle
a watermelon on the vine
a rocket on the pad.

today I’m a rusty old pile of railroad spikes
tossed together in a heap by the tracks
wondering why the trains don’t come anymore.

today I’m quiet
today I don’t speak
today I listen.

today I walk the circle
that leads to the center
from the outside
to the inside
and back again.

today I know that I’m only a sparkle of sunlight
shimmering on the surface of an ageless sea
today I hear the blade cutter in the distance
but I know it’s not for me
today I know the scariest thing I’ve ever known
that I can’t make my life
the life I thought it would be
not today
maybe tomorrow
but not today.

(PDF version)

my mum (say a little prayer for her) is 90

My mother is a crumbling building.

My mother is a rusted out car up on blocks
in the front yard whose engine is sound
and who longs for the thrill of the highway.

My mother is a story that doesn’t know how to
be told, and doesn’t know how to end, and
doesn’t even know what the superheroes could
do to help save her.

My mother is a boat on its way to Europe
in a thunderstorm.

My mother is a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie.

My mother is an Angel Food cake.

My mother is a nature lover, a fresh air lover,
a flower lover, a great view lover, a sunset lover,
a people lover, a very gentle soul.

When she thinks about herself my mother’s
brain is a wasp nest, her nerves are an
electrical fire, she feels like a racehorse
locked inside a burning barn.

My mother never meant anyone harm.

My mother is a caterpillar that is restless
in the cocoon and wants to be a butterfly.

David Jewell

David’s fine spoken word piece “grandfather” is a great companion to the above poem.

spirituality is a vibrant awakening consciousness
a deep and present awareness of ourselves
of everyone and everything around us
it’s knowing that our words and our actions matter
even when no one hears and no one sees
it’s listening to the heart and the mind and the body
to moon stars sun and trees
to wind fire rain and earth
to animals and plants
to dreams and daydreams
to grief and anger and hunger and sex
to all of the feelings we’ve been told not to have
and all of the thoughts we’ve been taught not to think
in the right balance
in the right time.

spirituality demands critical thinking
it requires curiosity
a desire to know what’s real
a willingness to strip off conditioned patterns of perception and habit and belief
layer by layer
regardless of personal cost
because otherwise
truth and truthfulness are lost.

spirituality is facing the mysteries of life and death
without hiding from questions that cannot be answered
and without the comfort of tall tales passed down through a million dark nights
it’s knowing that we are not alone
because we’re all here together
and it’s all up to us
together.

(PDF version)

you can’t hold any of it.

we don’t own anything
we don’t get to keep anything
not love or money
not friends or enemies
and certainly not
time.

my life will become
someone else’s life
my memories will become
someone else’s memories
even my face will become
someone else’s face
sooner or later.

someday I’ll be a fish again
and I won’t remember
the taste of a hook in my mouth.

someday I’ll be a baby again
trying to stand for my first time
falling down and getting up
over and over til I get it right.

someday I’ll be a tree stump again
nothing left of me but my roots
watching the other trees rise and fall
slowly fading to dust and dirt.

someday an arrow will take me down
pierce my heart
empty my life
finish me
and when it does
I’ll be an arrow again
the arrow that pierces
someone else’s heart.

(PDF version)