You don’t talk to the dead

you talk at them

setting the story aright

 

a canoe overturned in rapids

belongings sodden

tied down by intention

 

to survive

words float to the surface

old   old   old   old   old

 

 

Oh you have come full circle

the beginning of the end

that is erasure

 

a pressure to speak

not chatter!   not defeated

all your mistakes stacked against you

 

In the no place of your somewherelse mind

you don’t join the swimmers

don’t join old folks for a communal meal

 

 

When the only person who calls

speaks a foreign tongue

when free association obscures your dream

 

a queen who could no longer be herself

being crowned

do you feel shame

 

thriving alongside humanity’s crimes

against life   the shame

of a good enough fortune?

 

 

Life   human life    For Hawking

an equivalent in all the universe

unlikely   Feel it! that pressure

 

to evolve

to become a paradigm

of compassion

 

to grow in spiritual insight

to find eternal life

alight within