I.

When a day slips away
and you think yourself in another
you’re in trouble
I’ve been watching the season evolve
from buds to a pale green, deepening
intricate details in the intimate view
is it a fault forgetting the view of one day
shifting its details to another?
you’ve only failed a neurologist’s test.
Every day the same wind waves the same tree tops
the old days of working in Tic-Tok time long past.
I no longer wake myself with a day’s
scheduled assignments
I’m happy to have it slip away
for now I can happily watch
the grass wind wave in my mini-meadow
A new stage this, losing a day.

II

At some point there seems not much left of future
and the past come rushing in
filling the vacumn so to speak
as I found corresponding with an old friend
from Boy Scouts who’s in communion
with the ghosts of a wife and son
creating a future for him no doubt
hanging on wings somewhere in celestuality.

It’s not dementia to forget about what tomorrow
was supposed to be, its just clarity —
its not going to be much different from today
when you end in a nursing home or assisted living,
though they try – TV is always the same
you’ve read all the books, mysteries begin to bore.

But I’ve found a way out
I do this – this writing thing.
The past can come in rambunctiously,
and futures can be fantasy
better than heaven’s obscure beatitudes.

III

Death’s dark, the last light fades,
all ones questions and hopes are unanswered,
dogs wail, the chorus cries and rends its hair
the spirit remains in memories
by nightfall the body and soul buried.

Simple.
Too simple ‘There must be something more’,
truths can’t be left untouched.
Tinkering with death is fraught
naivety, like a blessing, looks skyward all the time.
If you expect to rise into heaven at a final bell
you’ll never hear it, no one rings it anymore.

It’s not bad, — just going —
be grateful there’s no Hell
though in Purgatorio great conversationalists
Plato, Archimedes, Democratus,

Be grateful you can read this
you’re still alive
so forget it, breathe sweet air
swim in the sea of life
its just once – remember –
so drain every delicious drop,
from the ever full flagon’s elixir.

Kent Bowker
June 23, 2016