Meditations 4 Misfits

I Don’t Believe in Death

People will deny
anything these days
so, I have decided to join
the practice of dismissing things
that we’ve been told are true
I have decided to quit believing in death
~ it just doesn’t exist for me anymore

I have a new theory
I’m working on~
when our dear ones
depart their bodies and
turn back into air and light
they don’t disappear
behind a brick wall
that separates us
~there are no bricks
there is no wall
~there are no barriers
there is only a grand
window between us
and those whom we
have stitched ourselves
to with the most divine
of angel hair threads
we can see our beloveds in
the heart shape clouds
and they can see us
as we kiss their picture
goodnight ever so softly

death doesn’t exist
it’s a debunked
flat-earth theology
where we are told that
the people we love spill off the
edge of the world and
fall away from us into
the endless unknown
that’s not my experience
what I have seen is that when
a dear one leaves me I don’t
feel the space grow between us
I feel us grow closer together
~ our entanglement becomes tighter
they travel with me to the
store to buy garlic
they brush my hair out of my eyes while
I cry in my car in an empty parking lot
they join me on my daily
walk around a lake
they sit on the board of my conscious
and offer me advice
they float above me while
I write a poem
they laugh when I trip over the same
damn chair every day
they catch my prayers and
courier them to God
they write love notes to me with steam
on my bathroom mirror
they play the right songs on the radio
at just the right time
they have made a cottage
in my heart
they have turned my eyes
into miracle telescopes
they converted my lungs
into a retreat center
they dance in the eyes
of my children
my loved ones haven’t gone anywhere
and neither have yours
they are just on the other side of the window
waiting for you to see them
waving at you
in their sundresses made out of stars
and their tuxedos stitched by time

and someday I will be on the
other side of the glass
acting so obnoxious that you
won’t be able to ignore me
and someday I will be writing
you love notes on the petals
of sunflowers for you to find
just when you need to read them
and someday I will help paint a
sunset in the exact color of the
way I felt whenever I was wrapped
up tightly in your arms

I’m not scientist but
my research tells me that
death doesn’t exist
however, love does
and it has no end
and neither do we

~ John Roedel