The wise ones often say
When one faces death –
The eternal oblivion,
The shared experience
That makes us all kin –
One sees with clarity
The life that one lived
With moments bitter-sweet
Savoured once more,
In a flash of a moment,
In the blink of an eye…
What I’d like to believe
Is that we’d only see
Some cherished memories:
Passionate colour splatters
Of careless brushstrokes
That my mind once made
Sloppily, on my rough,
Rugged and grey canvas,
Hanging on some wall
Of a favourite hidden room,
A secret trove of treasure
In some recess of my soul…
Memories like…
How the lashes of your eyes
Jingled like autumn leaves;
How your giggle resonated
With the babbling of a brook;
Or, how the wind came to comb
Your long and thick mane;
Made willows green with envy.
In the fall, they could barely
Match its crimson luster…
Or how radiant is your smile,
With a single mark of beauty,
Like a spot on the sun,
A subtle signature
Of a proud mother nature
On her finest work of art…
If death really brought,
Sensations that sweet,
I really wouldn’t mind dying a little bit,
Every moment, of every day,
As in French we like to say :
Une petite mort,
A little death,
A happy little decay…
Image credit: Feature image generated with DALL·E using a prompt based on this poem and its themes.
If this piece resonates with you and you’re a visual artist, I’d love to feature your own soul-crafted work in place of the AI image.
