Deep Time

0 Comments

Deep Time


Everybody has to die someday, some way.
I've known that since my great grandma died,
When I was three.
Three years is such a tiny piece of eternity.
But I was precocious: In some ways, even a prodigy.
And I began to read about death.
Theories and speculations; and sure and certain assertions,
Of a great multiplicity of contrary views and beliefs.
Not any address well the mystery of our sufferings and griefs.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Even as a child, I was chilled
To think I would someday be buried.
The alternative--to be burned to charred bone bits and ashes--
I had not learned of as an option--not yet.
That's even scarier for me.   Burning in a fire, like getting cancer,
Is one of my most terrifying phobias.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
And years go by, one by one.
They become the last little topmost sliver
Of Deep Time, that swallowed dinosaurs; Deep Time,
Like a great cup of wine, with millions of living bubbles,
Popping one by one.
Everybody has to die someday, some way.
I've known that for most of my life.
I always knew it was true, and that there was nothing I could do.
Just to live life and make the most of time, and make the best of life.
And to help others when I can, as long as I can.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Even great galaxies collide,
On a very slow slippery time-ride.
How many stars have shined and then, finally, ended?
In Deep Time.
When I wept over finding out my cancer was going to kill me,
I was told with what seemed to be disdain:
"Everybody is going to die."
He thought I had not known that.
But I
Had known it years ago--probably long before he.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Fear of death, and knowing death happens, is a very early memory.
But there are so many ways and times and means to die;
And there are varied numbers of years for life's blessings to supply.
I hoped and I had reason to think that I would die peacefully,
Of extreme old age, and with little or no pain.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
We are not all under the exact same sentence, or even close.
Some die full of years, surrounded by loved ones, dying easefully.
Others die in wracking wretched pain, over weeks or months or years,
With bodily functions a slow difficult sorrow, awry and gross.
So many pleasant ways, and then so many torturous ways to depart.
When some say we are all under the same sentence, where is their brain?
Where their thinking mind, to speak so thoughtlessly?  Where their heart?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I have pity for the deaths of all, no matter how and when.
Death does not justify death. 
A universal death sentence defines the human condition.
That's why we are called mortals.  The ancient Greeks had,
Among other names for humans, the plural word thannatoi:
The deathful ones. 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Someday soon, lifespans will be extended,
And possibilities and dreams and love will be expanded.  Yet even then,
Even if they get to live a thousand years--oh, to have been in that time!--
Death will follow for each and all, the final ending.
Yet never say it is the same sentence for all, the falsity of that is clear.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The fact that all shall someday die
Does not mean that we are all under the exact same sentence.
First of all, some live only a few fleet years;
Others live to be seventy, eighty, or ninety, or even a hundred or more.
People who are now age eighty-two, have a better chance of another three,
And peaceful pleasant years, than the chance that falls to me. 
Or that Brian had much medical hope to see.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
But beyond the different number of years, there are the different ways
That Chronos hunts us down and slays.
In China, people used to be executed by the Death of a Thousand Cuts.
The horrible practice was to cut a living person, to slice off pieces;
Maximizing the pain.  My mind was scarred with this knowledge
When I was sixteen.  Timothy McVeigh died quite another way.
A needle's pain; needles, which  I feel stab me day after day.
He did not suffer the same sentence as those poor Chinese victims
Of monstrous inhumanity's vicious dictums.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Now I face a death like that death, the Death of a Thousand Cuts.
Cancer can be like that.  Mine will be.
I cannot kill myself to avoid it; suicide chills me worse than any death.
But the death I must endure will come with much pain.
It is simply a fact, that my life is going to be wracked from me.
The kind and stage of cancer I have is painful, now eating my bones.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Yet we all do have to die some day.  I've always had sympathy for that.
I have always had compassion for my fellow and sister people.
I have compassion also for animals, who suffer too, and whose deaths loom.
Now, knowing that I cannot grow old, and die peacefully in a painless bed,
I find so many people lack all human feeling for me and the others here.
Death is used to justify death.  We late-stage cancer victims are all
On an assembly-line, a moving belt that carries us to doom.
As we move by, we are given shots, blood draws, pills, surgeries,
First line to last line of chemotherapy; then nothing, or hospice;
And our future is like a cloud of inescapable miseries.
I feel for my fellow and sister cancer victims most of all. 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Fate or God or chance decreed, that before my own life bled,
I had to watch the life of my beloved best friend bleed.
My greatest grief and sorrow will always be for Brian.
He was not under the same death sentence as most; he suffered more
Than anyone could deserve;
And what he deserved, was to live and be happy.



==============================
Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka (thanks to Luna Marie) Mr. Poet
Written on Sunday, July 17, 2011  5:48 pm PDT
104 degrees F.   Humidity: 2%    Forecast: overcast
Copyright (C) 2011 by Michael LP.  All rights reserved
(I still copyright my writings, for my estate)

Poem Comments

(0)

Please login or register

You must be logged in or register a new account in order to
leave comments/feedback and rate this poem.

Login or Register

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Czech writer.

PoetWithCancer’s Poems (224)

Title Comments
Title Comments
Happy Winter Solstice 1
Seasonal Ring 1
My Thanksgiving 0
God's Word 1
Under the Date Tree 1
A Few More Times 1
Divine and Diabolical World 0
Summer-Brief 2
Seasonal Ring 0
Shakespeare's Birthday and Death 0
Special Brian 0
I Remember Brian 0
Light of Life 0
Pain Has Defeated Me Today 1
The Old, Old Words 0
Home Is Where the Heart Is 0
A Sad Contemplative Christmas Today 0
Moments of Memory; In Memory of Moments 0
Sun and Rain, Joy and Pain: I Miss My Friend Brian 0
Dehumanized and Clinicized--N
OT
1
Not Full 0
Love, Loss, and Lennon 0
Dying Dream 0
Brian's Pure Love for His Lady 0
Two Loved Ladies Undergoing Surgery Now 0
The Masks Fall Off at Midnight 1
Prime of Life 1
Low Energy and Less Time: And Too Many Things to Do 1
Happy Veterans Day, Brian 0
Happy Veterans Day, Brian 0
Thanksgiving 0
Autumn of Year; Autumn of Life 0
Brian's Birthday and New Year's Eve 0
Under a Constant Star (9/11) 0
Deep Time 0
Is There Anything Out There 2
Classics in the Closet 0
Nobody 0
Feeling the Wind 0
The Wild Doe and the Hunter 0
Happy Birthday, Brian 0
The End of the World: Saturday, May 21, 2011, 6 pm PDT 1
Brian's Special Smile 0
Broken Birth 0
Missing Brian 0
Focus: Today, Happy 0
I Love You, Brian 0
The Ways and the Words of You 1
Stone Cry 0
Amore Immortale 0
Reality and Unreality 1
Lyrical Life 1
Easter 0
Shakespeare's Birthday 0
Friends During Need 1
Death--A Play--or the Final Act 0
Moods 0
I Was Worried About You 0
Song of Life 2
Me 1
Oh Mother of My Life, My Mind, My Heart--Happy Birthday (Sunday, April 3, 2011) 0
Your Money or Your Life 1
Poesis 0
A Last Look at the Moon 0
Tears for Brian: My Tears Spring Suddenly 0
Seventeen in the Past 1
Clusters 1
Suffering and Dying Where Love Is Least 1
Looking at People in a Restaurant, Talking to Brian 1
Brian Cannot Come Back to Me 3
Seven for Heaven: Human Haiku/Senryu, On Two Straight Guys Who Loved Each Other 3
Five Human Haiku (Senryu): Faithful to the Perfect Form 0
The Scream 3
Life Is 8
Following My Friend 3
Small Moments (Written by Patricia, for Brian) 1
For Precious Michael (Written by Patricia, for me) 4
Dream of Life, Dream of Friendship, Dream of Love 4
The Power to Create 4
A Single Fortune Cookie 6
The Meaning of Life 2
Dreamless 3
Prayers 3
Lost Love 2
I Thank My Mother for My Birthday and for Her Wonderful Mother Love 3
Lennon Lost His Life: And Now, So Has Teena Marie 2
All the Way with Part Way 2
Loving, Living, and Dying 6
Dreaming and Seeming 3
Poem Prayer 2
Science, Poetry, Philosophy, and More 2
Super A, Abuelita1--Th
ank You for Your Support, Caring Love, and Understanding
2
Wonderful Connie 1
Someday-Dying 2
Between Yes and No 3
Love of Life 1
Zappa the Magnificent 1
In the Midst of Life 2
Only One Death 1
Real Illusion 1
The Unknown 1
My Apparently Known Possible Fates in This World 1
No More Me 2
Someone 2
Leaving Life 1
Precious Jade 2
Fear and Grief and Going: Unguilty of the Grave 1
Using and Losing Time 1
Loveless Life 2
Good Life, Good Grief 1
Dreamless 1
Ontology versus Oncology 1
Now Time 2
No Present, No Future: All Past 3
Hippocratic Hell 1
First Light 2
Almost At the Limit [--A Sonnet] 1
Death-Trap 0
Broken 1
Birthday Termination 1
Moments 1
First and Last Cry 1
Love 2
Final Fragility 1
End of the World 1
Tripping 1
Seasonal Ring 1
Gifts that Go and Still Stay 1
Sidney Says: Advice to Poets and All Writers 3
Enthusiasm: God Within 3
Send Me Your Good Will, or Pray For Me--Please 1
Feeling Each Other's Pain 1
Snow Man for a Low Man 0
Explanation of My Poem "As If the Last" 2
New Year, No Love 2
Poetic Form 0
Guilty Pleasures: Not Guilty 2
About Me 1
Live, Laugh, and Love 4
Nothing Special 2
Why a Writer Writes 2
To Sarah Y and Her Beloved Little Boy Who Cries Out: Again! 1
I and You: Unique and the Same 1
Where's the Compasssion in Our Health Care System? 0
Lonely Girl, I'm Feeling the Way You're Feeling: But We Can Both Make It Through 3
Health-Care Reform and Hell on Earth 3
Psyche 3
My Bucket List (For Now) 4
My Most SCARED Moments 2
Children of the Stars 2
Passing Life's Test 1
Why More Now? 1
Remembering My Grandma on Thanksgiving Eve 3
Another Thursday, Another Hammer 4
Thursday's Hammer 1
New Birthday 2
Let Love of Life Light Up the Psyche of Fawn 1
To Angel Eyes: The Wonders of Your Life 1
Regarding the Lack of Fall in Texas 2
Light for the Fight 2
All That I Have 3
Shine 2
As If the Last 2
Here Now 1
All in Time 2
The Exile 2
Incurable and Terminal 4
Tripping 2
One More Tomorrow 1
My Dash 4
One of Two Is Stronger 1
No More Romeo; No More Juliet 1
Friendship and Life 1
Snow and Life 3
Live Spelled Backwards 1
Sarah Y 2
To Fly 2
My Cry 1
Moment of Madness 2
Fall From a Great Height 1
A Memory 1
Less Life; No Loving 2
A Loser, True 2
Time Stop 1
Final Sleep 1
Entre Enfer 1
Flying Life 1
One Would Have Been Enough to Make Life Worth Living 5
Once 3
The Haiku Form 2
Bridge to a Comet--Your Visits and Comments to Me 4
Get Well Soon, Luna Marie 2
Winging It (a human haiku, or senryu) 3
Light Locomotive 2
Skite, Where Were You Today? Where Are You Tonight? 2
Angel's Wings, Angel's Voice 4
Shy, but Not Too Shy 2
High Coo 4
From Night to Night 3
Life's Journey's End--Cut Short by Cancer 4
Love, Light, Life, and Night 2
Fear and Courage 1
Death in Life 3
Unknown Final Fate 3
To Right a Poem 4
Crab-Like Concealed 4
Soon 2
All in the Mind 3
Ebony Shine 3
On My Nephew Naming His First-Born Son After Me 5
Love, Loss, and Lennon 3
Eqinox 4
Feeling My Heart 5
The Best Person I Ever Knew: My Best Friend--Brian 2
In Memoriam, George Difficult 3
Lovers 7
Art 5
Things to Do 4
Plane on Fire 3
Ameliorator 5
Thanksgiving 7
Worlds of Light 24
Failure's Fortress 13
Song of Life (Original Version) 13