Sadness

I have become a little sad

at the thought of my death.

It does not trouble me to speak in this way.

I know that I am not spoiling the ending of life

for any of you.

For some of you, perhaps,

there will be recognition,

for others, curiosity in my words.

But this awareness, which now illuminates the world for me,

is changing what I see.

No great revelation, this -

perhaps standing on the graves of my parents

was all that was needed to see over an edge

that I had not previously realized was an edge.

I don’t expect that words will adequately define or explain,

but they may show the color of my thinking.

Let us begin again.

I have become a little sad.

That little word should not be taken too seriously.

It is a marker, a substitute,

an indication of direction.

The sound of the word ‘sad’

says something that is contained in generations of human usage.

I do not mean to be illogical,

but reason lacks an anchor to bring clarity.

So we must dance.

It might be better to substitute a word like ‘ether,’

the substance we now say does not exist,

but thinkers in ages past used it to fill in

the empty space that turned up everywhere.

I see sadness everywhere,

not merely an emotion,

not a source of unhappiness or pain.

A fifth dimension, or maybe

some marginal part just beyond the fourth dimension –

which they say is time.

But let’s begin again.

I have become a little sad.

The tree in front of me,

a maple,

which has nearly doubled in height

and breadth and more in volume

in the twenty years

I have sat on this porch swing.

Intermittently, of course, have I sat.

The tree will almost certainly outlive me.

Lightning might strike.

The hummingbird,

burning like a candle at both ends,

that I see flitting among the zinnias,

likely will not see my demise.

Perhaps a word like ‘finitude’ could help.

But this is not about words.

Except words are what we -

not the maples or the hummingbirds - have.

Let us begin again.

I have begun to feel a little sad.

There are edges and colors and dimensions to everything.

And now I realize that I must l look at everything

all over again, perhaps some things for one last time.

I may have missed noticing a quality,

perhaps a filament of a sadness,

that throbs deeper within

than where I could previously go.

This sadness pervades the spaces in between life,

and has apparently done so for a long, long time.

There are patches of sunlight on the trunk of the maple.

The leaves drink water from below

and draw energy from above.

I would not be lying if I told you

that they leave a pattern of sadness

in the hazy-edged, sunlit circles

on the bark of my maple tree.

But let us begin one more time.

I do not wish to abandon this word

to speak of what I feel.

But speaking of life and death,

of joy and sadness,

at the prelude of the prelude

of my own funeral, is too harsh.

It grates.

I had hoped that this exercise would inform me.

But words will have to wait.

There are branches of maple trees

whispering in the gusts

of a near-negligible wind.

I cannot quite hear

if they are speaking of sadness.

**

And tonight, I must begin yet again.

Last fall, two years after I thought I had

concluded this word sketch,

we had the maple - that had been expected

to outlive me - cut down.

It had succumbed to a disease

and had lingered until only

a few branches were still green.

It turned out to be an unbearable sadness,

but one, that like so many others,

it has been borne.

I will hold onto a conviction

that immaterial spirits exist –

they are of necessity created

in my mind out of what was once

living matter and energy.

You could come and sit with me

sometime on my porch swing.

We would not need to speak of

sadness. I am quite sure that

the spirit of the maple tree

that had shared time and space with me

would want us to be joyful –

though we had considered

all the facts.

We could sit together.

I can hardly bear the pang

of my loneliness in some times,

except that I am aware of so many spirits

who are gone before me,

present in my mind,

and I will see so many

living faces in the morning.

And, maybe, we will

certainly be joyful together.

But tonight I will hug

my sadness.

Hear me, maple tree,

it is better that I miss you,

if only for a small portion of life,

than that we had never met.