A bit of a brute, he was often found in the kitchen with his shirt off cooking, peeing in the garden beds or brooding by himself in the early morning dark.

Sometimes he smelled.

He was a hard man, but his heart was in the right place.

Someone had to say something, so there you go.

As you got down to the end of the novel you could tell the author was getting sad about it ending, the way he treated his characters, like he was saying goodbye to them too.

Sometimes you could be talking to your kids and hear the sound of your parents’ voice in yours. Like echoes of the past, they’re alive in you too.

Walking by the farm in the early morning how the rooster crowing sounded like a human voice, like a person trapped inside a chicken making that sound.

He was a hard man, mom often said about her dad, but she loved him. Her older siblings felt differently. By the time she was born he’d softened.

Part of what we do at funerals when eulogizing is bring the dead back. We make them real again by breathing life into the past. Everyone is listening and picturing that person and focused on them. It’s like cheating death but we only get one chance to do it.

Sometimes in the house you could hear people’s voices coming from other rooms, or music, people laughing, talking on the phone.

The way you treated someone could influence the way they thought of themselves. So over time the person you became was in part the person other people thought you were. This can work both ways.

It’s funny to think how people from your past show up in dreams. Like who wrote these scripts?

She was a selfless mom: meaning most of who she was was being there for her kids. She gave of herself freely.

You can write your own obituary and people often do. You just don’t have to call it that.

The gulf of years drops out beneath you and everything you had or knew falls away, out of view.

Death is life in reverse just faster and more painful.

You can feel the number of pages left as you get down to the end of the book and then it’s just over.

Dress it up all you like, the end is still the end.

The geese started flying south today.

Categories: death, identity, Poetry

Tags: death, identity, poem, Poetry, spirituality