Absent-minded

Death is not a reality, but the absence of a reality. ~Thomas Merton

They say I’m not dead yet,

but surely this is hell.

Not the inferno they preach,

but a sterile hallway, narrow

and lengthening beyond

my poor eyesight.

They say at the end of it,

there is light, but I’ve  been there

and I can tell you, it’s a white wall

decorated with an oil-painted face

of God, hung to remind  me of his absence,

how even he’s abandoned this place.

They tell me it’s Autumn.

So the ginkgos must be dressed in dying

leaves, baring branches as spindly

and useless as my bony limbs.

Who cares about the senseless seasons?

Only those who want to believe

there’s a reason to live past Winter

need the consolation of renewal.

Me, I’m waiting for tardy death

and wanting them to cover the damn window

so the sun stops mocking dawn and dusk

and finally shrivels the husk of belief in hours

and days, finally sheds the pretense of light.

They say dying is the absence of living,

but I can tell you it’s merely relief

from the illusions of concrete

things, like these brick walls and

this joke of a windowed view.

So, I sit here counting on absent-

minded death, hoping it too

has not abandoned me, wanting

that welcomed embrace when finally,

finally I become nothing.

© Ami Mattison


For One Stop Poetry's Sunday Picture Prompt Challenge


Photo courtesy of Greg Laychack