Extantional

image borrowed by bing

Extantional 

“There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers;

that is a fairy tale for people who are afraid of the dark.”

--Stephen Hawking.

When you’re a kid,

                     death is just a game you play

                     when it’s your turn

to be the Indian, & your Cowboy friends

                     empty their finger guns & cap pistols

into your gut.

You grunt, groan, & moan,

                 grabbing your imaginary wound

as you go to your knees,                  flop over backwards,

twitch a little,       close your eyes,          hold your breath

                 and get it over with. 

You go to your first funeral

when you are thirteen,

wearing your church clothes,

as your uncle,
who hit a telephone pole while driving drunk,

lies waxen & ashen in his attractive coffin,

looking like a discarded department story dummy;

as the weeping & wailing seems odd

counterpointed by the humorous testimonials. 

You are in your early twenties

                 when you mother dies

                                 before she was forty;

death being assisted by demon cancer,

                                 & this time the copious tears

are your own, & the testimonials

are not funny.

Before long,

           you are thirty-something,

                        & friends, cousins, grandparents

                                         & nephews all die.

You become accustomed to grief therapy

                        & the trappings of ceremony,

                        finding yourself looking forward

to the food served after the service--

                        joyfully celebrating a life

versus being overwhelmed

           by lamentation & loss.

Death becomes the pink elephant

in the yard,

in the room;

difficult to ignore,

a tedious demanding companion now--

no longer that occasional drop-in visitor,

an annual or semi-annual guest; no,

it is incessant, unceasing, always there

in your peripheral vision--

whispering, cajoling, begging;

look at me,

acknowledge me,

respect & fear me;

Simply inexorable, inevitable,

a dark destination with a shadowy depot

                              that every traveler one day

                              must pass through;

so in defense of your fragile sanity

                              you begin to earnestly study

                               the thick tomes

of hope,

of faith,

of physics,

of philosophy, & one magical day

                          the fear is nearly gone, replaced

by shimmering exuberant alacrity

                        & logic, as you

are comforted by          cosmic truths,        past lives,

                             quantum theory & metaphysics;

as you passionately postulate

                        that the fuck-stick of Death

                        is just another doorway,

                        a transitional portal--

that soul energy can never be, is never

extinguished--that although

your damaged husk

                        will have to be abandoned,

like a broken, rusted, inoperable machine

that your caring loved ones

                         will crate up in preparation

                         for cremation

                         or internment,

& you will be aware of their sadness,

   you will be mostly occupied with

                bustling about the dominion of Source,

                making decisions about

                where

in the vast Spiritual Realm

                 you will be posted next,

for you prove to be a strong swimmer

in the cosmic currents

of the Continuum. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets

Would you like to hear the author read this poem to you?