LIFE One would probably think that I always or never think
about the subject. Both are quite wrong. Not even when
I am taking one; do I really think about the actual balance
of life or death. I think about the actual process; the
semantics, the science, the math, the process. I never think
about the actual romantic or religious side of it. The side
that invokes visions of sunrises and sunsets; crying family
members and a Holy being holding his or her arms open to
great that soul I released into its care.
But now, as I sit here outside of the tent that the lovely
patrons of The Emma Settlement are letting us borrow,
I think about life. Not as a contrast to death- but just as
a subject all its own.
A flower did not grow. A child did not laugh. There was
no blue bird flitting about from tree to tree singing a song
uplifting. I did not catch the sunrise and I will most likely
be on my way to a job while the sun is setting and hardly
paying attention to when it sets. Not the rise and fall of
my husband’s chest as he snored nor the sounds of Ackley’s
free world speeches. There was nothing beautiful or
profound that struck the subject up in my head.
There wasn’t a tree, dead and decaying with the roots
rotting beneath the Earth. The meat that was spinning
on the spit over the fire, freshly skinned. The papers
that lay next to you, journal, on the table that I use with
the orders of my next job- none of those blatant sights
of death made me think of life, either.
And what is it that I think of life;
living;
dying;
death?
I don’t know.