Sunny Day Gloom-Time with Slight Hamletine Overtones
©July 8th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
Mostly, I think I’m immortal.
Sometimes, I’m reminded I’m not.
That skull under the flesh and skin, for example.
A reminder of shared human-ness with all the other skulls on the planet …
That spine that is slowly rebelling, but which bends to my will
As I seek to heal with help.
The hair that’s constantly changing its mind:
Whether to be one thing or another.
The feet which feel the earth revolving slowly around the sun …
The hands that get more veined each year,
Green-blue rivers and tributaries, still dutiful.
The sense that Time passes, everything changes,
And still remains the same.
I take action, yes, and am decisive, yes.
And it matters, and does not matter.
Inaction seems a holy grail:
A stone sitting still, dreaming, covered in moss,
Sanctified by time, ignored by history,
Watching centuries turn over,
As it erodes to dust.
In a few decades, I’ll be gone.
History began, and will end with me,
And it began before me, and will end after me.
I’m glad my time will come,
And I mourn it.
I’ve always liked to see what happens
When a story reaches its end.
My atoms will be witness.
And the I that was will be We
With the End of Time.
I wish I could be both I,
And You, and We.
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