Sunshine and Fresh Air…
…A Journey of Death
By
Ann Wilmer-Lasky
Today
I am sitting in my back yard enjoying the blue sky and fluffy white clouds
along with the occasional arrow-straight contrail. I am listening to the myriad
chirping birds gathering before they cross the border to winter in Mexico's
warmth. I am not thinking of dying…
Who
am I kidding? I am always thinking of dying, except perhaps in my dreams. I do
still dream. I don't remember them much except that they are not pleasant
dreams. They allow me no escape from my waking life.
But
death? Death permeates every waking thought. Even when I am thinking of the
things I must do, the deadline is shortened by my pending doom.
Within
the next few days, I must complete the filing of income tax - knowing that,
although I have nothing left, taxes my be paid on what I had and had to throw
after the mounting bills I could not pay.
Yes,
I know about bankruptcy. It didn't cover everything. And my meager Social Security
doesn't cover my current even though minimal obligations. It seems there are no
jobs in the small, economically challenged New Mexican community we moved to.
So
maybe I have a heart attack and die with the stress of the taxes and the bills,
but that would offer no relief to my family.
Wait!
Didn't I start this out sitting under the wonderful, warm fall sky, enjoying
the sound of the birds? Yet like E.A. Poe there is "no surcease of
sorrow". (Gee was that period outside the quotation mark?) I don't care -
I'm dying. I can put the period where I want to.
My
admonition from today's rantings? Perhaps this:
Put every cent you can safely by. A
dollar in the hand can buy food. Pie-in-the-sky is just that and will not fill
your belly.
(An admonition I have long been
aware of - yet, again, there was always tomorrow.)
My
poem of the moment follows. I Sing the Body Dying - the second
in a new collection which will be published at or before my death, depending on
how long I have left.
I Sing the Body Dying
By Ann
Wilmer-Lasky
When every breath I draw
Consumes my will and strength,
My every waking thought,
The beating of my heart
The only thing I need
Not cause, I may contend
Demise most imminent.
I would let go and fill
My head with numbing dreams,
Perhaps reach for the light.
But there is part of me
That will not acquiesce,
That measures still each breath
A victory of life
However hollow, part
That screams my wild rantings
Into the dull, dead air.
I shall not die today.
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