Heaven To Be
by Sharon Olds
When I’d picture my death, I would be lying on my back,
and my spirit would rise to my belly-skin and out
like a sheet of wax paper the shape of a girl, furl
over from supine to prone and like the djinn’s
carpet begin to fly, low,
over our planet—heaven to be
unhurtable, and able to see without
cease or stint or stopperage,
to lie on the air, and look, and look,
not so different from my life, I would be
sheer with an almost not sore loneness,
looking at the earth as if seeing the earth
were my version of having a soul. But then
I could see my beloved, sort of standing
beside a kind of door in the sky—
not the door to the constellations,
to the pentangles, and borealis,
but a tidy flap at the bottom of the door in the
sky, like a little cat-door in the door,
through which is nothing. And he is saying to me that he must
go, now, it is time. And he does not
ask me, to go with him, but I feel
he would like me with him. And I do not think
it is a living nothing, where nonbeings
can make a kind of unearthly love, I
think it’s the nothing kind of nothing, I think
we go through the door and vanish together.
What depth of joy to take his arm,
pressing it against my breast
as lovers do in a formal walk,
and take that step.
Heaven To Be
By Kenny Zee
When I picture my death, I’m never lying on my back.
I’m always leaning forward, wondering if this is it.
Then trying to think the things I’ve heard that people think,
Then suddenly clarity, and I think the things that I think.
So much left to do, undone.
My cats, my only emotional attachment right now,
I wanted so badly to outlive them, maybe, please, this is not the time?
Who will take care of them, what will happen to them?
Will they miss me? Will they hurt to miss me?
Why can’t I be there now when they need me most?
Will I be able to see them, to watch them, feel them,
Wherever, whenever… if this…
Oh damn, my parents. This will break their hearts.
To outlive your parents
Is to spare them the grief of losing a child before their time.
More hopes left uncompleted.
My spirit will not rise as it has long ago taken flight.
I move easily amongst the stars, the universe,
The now, the then, the to come.
I have seen the beginning, the end, the purpose,
Felt one with it all even though I often wish to be left alone
Wish to be left, the only conscious being in an infinite-verse
Surfing the emptiness with no baggage but wonder.
Other than regret at the tears caused by my death
My last thoughts are not of family or friends or lovers
In my world there are no final endings only new beginnings
And more wonder at what grand differences will be when we meet again.
Himmel In Sich (Heaven In Itself)
In body movement which is like picturing my death
I start with saying:
“We do not know this before, nor shall we know it again.”
This is not feeling,
Either the creature-fear, quaking,
Or the self-conscious hope that Consciousness
Would not waste consciousness in Oblivion–pure emptiness.
This is not tossing and turning and wondering or regretting
In the early, early half-night;
Nor is it rising up in the first glint of the horizon-riding summer sun
To sit at peace,
Grateful,
In its warmth and light…
So making his way to the mound, he sat, book on lap, basking in the sun, eyes closed, not reading, thoughts empty, idly hearing the sounds of the children at their play. A pause, and then, in a moment of the kind that separates one change of awareness to another, however invisible as seen from the outside, he instantly became filled with a deep delight in recalling and meditating upon the energy released by the fusion of hydrogen atoms into helium in the heart of the sun; That this surplus of energy had made a million year journey from deep within the sun’s core to its surface, to be radiated for eight minutes across 93 million miles of space separating sun and earth, passing through the thin skin of the earth’s atmosphere to strike his face, illuminating it, in this very moment of this here and this now, allowing him to enjoy feeling warm after a long, cold and lonely winter; knowing this, who could not marvel that events taking place at such a distance in time and space, and at such heat and pressure, would, or could, be counted upon to bear up and make possible not just the man sitting there, and the playing children, but everything around?
What is consciousness or a star,
Or the quick black hole beating heart of a galaxy
But organized emptiness?
The lesser in going to join the greater,
Does it mourn the loss of identity?
Ah mourning! Ah, morning!
Someone comes into the Country. Someone leaves the Country.
Each bright green coming and each going away
To fall into the long sun-dim cold time of waiting—
They are the passages that make the Country.
Something within the heart anguishes to feel this happening,
And something rises to warmly greet it as a long-lost friend coming home
With apt expectation not without joy.
All of this has happened before.
All of this will happen again.
This One & This One 