Recycling

  Jon Erii 2017

When I die, my earthly body

will burn and poof disappear.

Or host small creatures who

can enjoy a human meal.

The show - life, must go on

until someday when a fiery

sky eradicates all of life

here on Earth, that is.

But what about my soul?

My thoughts, my memories,

lodged in neurons, floating

through pathways like creeks

assembling into a crescendo

of thoughts, desires, music,

the sweet scent of a woman,

from an afternoon, time past.

Will I continue to live on?

The soul’s strange particles,

jumping, no time to spare,

into one of the endless copies

of me in a multiverse as if

nothing had happened -

although I am dead here

in the one we call present.

Have I died many a time?

When I was four, falling

under the ice on the lake?

Or when that car came

right at me, and I ditched.

Did I have that heart attack?

I thought so - or did a flight

never reach its destination.

Maybe I will go on forever,

to eternal life, which sounds

scarier than death itself.

Imagine time standing still,

a billion years without

silence, surrounded by all

the people who have ever

lived and died on earth.

The mystery of the beyond

is rationalized through a

myriad of myths and faiths.

But I wanna know. I am

entitled to an explanation

after my last breath, when

embers slowly turn dark

then into ash, then soil.

Truth is - every atom in my

body will for eternity spin,

joining countless diverse

types of perfect life forms,

guided by nature’s wisdom.

Death is but recycling

the essence of all things

giving birth to perfection.