George or End Thoughts

By Marian Glaser ©

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Being too sick and tired for anything else,

lying here, leaves me forced to think.

What am I, what is a human?

I remember running through fields, wandering through woods, climbing trees,

looking for butternuts, apples and berries,

skating, throwing snowballs, building hay forts.

But when I try to see my essence

everything fades except a small, unimportant bit,

like silt obscuring gold nuggets.

I am crusted over with family’s, friends’ and society’s demands.

Finding me amongst all the shoulds is like disinterring

a body buried under a collapsed apartment building, and

left to rot for weeks.

Perhaps that’s because I’ve always accepted

evaluations not my own, not knowing me.

I never had time to find myself,

unfold to my full potential. I was too busy.

My body began to refuse me years ago,

not that I listened.

Now I lie in this hospital bed waiting

for a free operating room for my heart surgery.

I may not survive..

My cousin died during his triple by-pass.

I am trying to imagine life in eternity. I was told

everything would be as now except for a lifting of all restraints.

Right now I can’t forget the body is one.

I was taught to think of enhanced bodily pleasures.

Green earths and utopias abound in versions of paradise,

beautiful but unconvincing pictures.

Not quite as boring as white robed figures strumming harps and singing hymns

but not believable by the time I became a teenager.

If our essences survive death their pleasures may be unimaginable.

I can’t even predict tomorrow’s sorrows and joys,

let alone eternity’s.

My biggest pleasure came when ice dancing in my twenties and

sex during my honeymoon.

Other things were fun but don’t linger in the same way.

Maybe tomorrow all my questions will be answered.