Watching a Funeral From Afar
I live in a high rise apartment on the fifth floor
There is a funeral home just across the street
Every couple of days I watch through the closed blinds
All the cars and people gather to say their goodbyes
I never watch from the balcony, I do not want to be seen
And I try not to stare
But it always gives me morbid thoughts
Sometimes the parking lot is overflowing
And there are great crowds of people outside after the services
Other times there are not so many cars and people
Is that what it all comes down to?
You led a good life if your funeral is standing room only?
The longer the procession of cars to the burial site
The fuller your life was?
I imagine there will be lots of extra parking at my internment
Please forgive my pathos and self pity
For I am a schizophrenic hermit who mostly sees the world
From the closed blinds of a fifth story window
I wonder if it would make any difference
For me to know how many people went to my services
I wonder if I will know
Or even care
If you could go to your own funeral, would you?
I have just a glimmer of hope there will be better things to do
If I am worthy when the time comes
But what is so funny is the car
Almost always parked on the side of the funeral home
A white Corvette
I hope it is the mortician's car
Because oh the irony of a mortician sporting a white Corvette!
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 3:03 PM UTC
Good Things
Ducks flying so low over a lake that their wingtips seem to touch the water
The shadow of a cloud passing languidly over a cow dotted pasture
A joyous roiling dog sprung from the kennel after its master's return
The way you still feel the waves as you drift off to sleep after a day at sea
The clever squirell always finding some way to steal from a bird feeder
Sunrise over the white capped ocean, sunset over the white capped mountains
Trees that live for more than five thousand years
Turtles that swim across the world to spawn on the the shore where they hatched
The way you have to look around rapidly to to follow the path of a firefly
Red lightning that strikes from the top of the clouds up into space
Butterflies that would die if not for the strength they gain breaking free of their chrysalis
Double rainbows and Origami swans
Cicadas that only come out of the ground once to mate every seventeen years
The technical miracle of a 150,000 pound airplane landing safely time and time again
A 60,000 year old Siberian mummy found with a pouch of marijuana on his belt
That feeling in the air just before and after a thunder storm
And let us not forget a good friend, a good joke, a good laugh, and a good cry
There is so much garbage in this wide world
I try to fill my mind with positive and beautiful things
One of them is you
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 12:40 PM UTC