Death, or: Beyondering

A golden shovel in blank verse

EPIGRAPH:

I don’t know what happens after death but I’ll have to chance it.

Desert Snow, Jim Harrison (1937 – 2016)

Left alone to my own devices, I
oft ponder beyondering, though I don't
dare wander past the edges of we-know
before twilight. O, Sun, I wonder what,
while watching you fade away, what happens
~ in the perpetual darkness after,
though even you haven't seen your own death.
None will be for your final flickers, but
a handful shall heap grief whe(r/n)ever I'll
no-longer, marking time, as bodies have
since first being. So, while you'll return to
dawn again, I won't be watching, my chance
a once-dream, like my father's before it.

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d’Verse poetics prompt

Songs of Unreason

At d’Verse, poets were encouraged to pick one of the following eight lines of poet Jim Harrison’s and use it as an epigraph for a poem inspired by that line (poems may be written in any form):

1. “There is a human wildness held beneath the skin.” – Arts, Jim Harrison
2. “He went to sea in a thimble of poetry.” – Poet Warning, Jim Harrison
3. “In truth each day is a universe in which we are tangled in the light of stars.” – Horses, Jim Harrison
4. “I don’t know what happens after death but I’ll have to chance it.” – Desert Snow, Jim Harrison
5. “Yes, in the predawn black the slim slip of the waning moon.” – Remote Friends, Jim Harrison
6. “Some days in March are dark and some altogether glittery and loud with birds.” – March in Patagonia, AZ, Jim Harrison
7. “We’re doubtless as old as our mothers, thousands of generations waiting for the sunlight.” – Sunlight, Jim Harrison
8. “After last night’s storm the tulip petals are strewn across the patio where they mortally fluttered.” – Church, Jim Harrison

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Let’s write poetry together!

When it comes to partnership, some humans can make their lives alone – it’s possible. But creatively, it’s more like painting: you can’t just use the same colours in every painting. It’s just not an option. You can’t take the same photograph every time and live with art forms with no differences.

–Ben Harper (b. 1969)

Would you like to create poetry with me and have a completed poem of yours featured here at the Skeptic’s Kaddish? I am very excited to have launched the ‘Poetry Partners’ initiative and am looking forward to meeting and creating with you… Check it out!