She spoke to me, this unmarked stranger,
from somewhere beneath the vase of
freshly cut flowers.
I stood there listening in the fading light,
sinking into her newly laid sod
with the burden I carried with me.
“If council from the dead is what you seek,
all I can tell you is this:
You must love your life.
You must do everything you want to do in it.
For once you are gone,
You Will Miss It!
You will wish you had just one more day
to do all of the things you spent your entire life
saying NO to.”
* * *
Why are we so obsessed with the pursuit of pleasure
when it is our pain that draws us closest to our Truth;
closest to our fragility and our mortality.
Can it be that our deepest reality
is the very last thing we wish to know about ourselves?