Looking at People in a Restaurant, Talking to Brian

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Looking at People in a Restaurant, Talking to Brian


See all these people, Brian?
Each and every one, unique and special.
Each one, irreplaceable.
Look at that old man, for example.
Or, rather I should say:
Look at that elderly gentleman.
Inside himself, he is I.
He has memories as precious to him, as mine to me.
Many kinds of memories:
Of childhood days.  Of climbing trees.
Of throwing rocks.  Of skimming stones.
A time when time felt like an everlasting breeze.
Memories.  Precious childhood memories.
Of catching fish and chasing frogs.  Watching birds.
Of having and loving a dog, or a series of dogs.
Perhaps even of learning to love language and care for words.
Memories of Grandma and Grandpa.
Of Mom and Dad.
Of uncles and aunts and cousins--people loved, by the dozens.
And people loved deeply, individually.
So many memories.  Some good, some bad.
But all together precious--the sum of his life's identity.
The memory of his first blush.  The first time he felt a crush
On someone.   Then when he was hit hard, totally sweet on a girl.
The memory of the first time he kissed a girl.  A real live girl!
The first time he went out on a date.
The memory of going steady, with his first real girlfriend.
When things were mysterious, and finally got serious.
The memory of his first transport by pleasure.
The memories of his first true love.  His life's last love.
Every memory, a treasure.
And also, in his memory's treasure-bin,
His lifetime's very best friend--
Which, perhaps, as in our case, managed to transcend
Every other relationship and love.
This older man--and everybody here, young and old, in this restaurant--
Subject like me and you to time as tyrant.
Each person is the center of the universe, within.
Human consciousness--the topmost treasure of time,
Filled to unfold realities from untold potentials of the sordid and sublime.
A person--a human being--
In form, how like an angel--as Shakespeare said;
In apprehension, how like a god.
Godlike one.  That's me, Brian: Michael. 
But in truth, that's also you; and also everyone:
Each of us all, a godlike one.
Yet sadly, each a sod-shaped soul,
Glowing and living with beautiful, bountiful, spiritual breath,
Addressed unto the realm of death.
It is so sad to know,
That--swift or slow,
Soon or late--
Each one must face the final fate.
Whether in pain, powerless of anodyne--
A fate like yours--a fate like mine--
Or a finer, easier, unpained fate--a peaceful exit--a gracious gate.
Something I weepingly wanted for you and me, to love and to appreciate.
Long years or decades more, to live, to love and dream, to sing and shine.
Still, at last: Final fate.
Differently done, differently found--
But--in the end--in an urn, or scattered, or in the ground.
An end, or so seeming, of living and dreaming--
It looks like shade swipes sight,
Dousing day, and stripping night of light;
And it seems that silence swallows every sound.
Is there life beyond?  Who knows! 
We can only know where lie buried bones, that mock glorious birth;
Cold cover of magic miraculous life, under stones and earth.
We can know only where ashes fall and fan, and where dust blows.
Unpleasured and unpained,
Pitiful bones; sad senseless ashes; blind dead dust.
The rest is unknowable.  Hope, or unknowing faith, or leap of trust.
It is so sad and tragic that final fate finds all of us.
Oh, how much caring love, and compassion, I deeply feel--
For all my fellow and sister people!--For every single special one.
Your fate, Brian, and my fate, both teach me
To love my fellow and sister human beings compassionately.
To care truly, and do what good I can,
For sister woman and fellow man.
We each, soon or late,
Must fall into final fate--
Losing magic life, tragically, into death's deep dark mystery.
All these people, Brian--you see?  Each one of them, basically,
The same as you and me.
I hope and pray for new good life--for me; and especially, Brian,
I hope and pray for new good life, for you.
And I hope and pray for new good life, for every other person, too.
Each one unique, special, irreplaceable--just like me.
And some of the myriads of people, almost--but not quite--
Of so many wonderful ones living in light and lost in night--
Some almost--but no one, Brian, quite as wonderful as you;
Nor anyone quite as special as you. 
I hope and pray you are somehow, somewhere still living, and happy too.


==============================
Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet
Written on Monday, March 14, 2011  6:55 pm PST
Copyright (C) 2011 by Michael LP.  All rights reserved.

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stigbohnolsen commented on Looking at People in a Restaurant, Talking to Brian

03-23-2011

I cannot put into words what these make me feel, but i can tell you they make me feel it alot. Once again, Thanks for sharing

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) American poet.

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