Death

I think a lot about death.  It sits in the distance, waiting patiently.  It hides along the path.  At some point it's going to jump out and whisk me away forever.  But still I travel.

Death doesn't scare me, at least not for now.  The Great Manuring takes everything and returns it all to its proper place on the planet.  Each and every life, be it plant, animal or fungus, crumbles to a reusable form.  We dissipate.  We become elemental.

Is there life after death?  Better to ask, why should there be?  Only humans create gods in their own image.  In no place but the mind of Man does a maker exist.  There is no divinity for slugs or algae.  They don't worship. And yet they thrive.

In the recesses of my pompous mind a thought sometimes surfaces:  Maybe it's my own creation.  Perhaps I will persist.  Because I create my own reality, without me my world does not exist.  Therefore I can generate an alternative in which my ka endures.  The thought is almost comforting.

But the logic is cracked and faulted.  There will be a clear edge, a terminus, an end point. And because my self will cease, I do not care.  My sole ambition is to make this space worthy.

Will I be remembered?  I hope not.  Rather let me be like a tree dissolving in the woodlands: a simple felling that creates a loamy, fecund field.

That is the most I can expect.  That is all I ask.