Five Seventeen.
Cleaning grave sites is perhaps the most contemplative activity there is.
It was, I suppose, what one would call unseasonably cold today. Compounding this being so was an intermittent breeze, not strong enough to be noticed, but vital enough to be real. And with the late afternoon soon peering in beneath the brim of my hat there is no room for immediate, or familiar thoughts.
Just the sort that linger.
To think that there will be someone I've not yet met, or as yet has not been created who will care enough for my remains after I have left this place is mind-boggling.
But I do my best not to press this issue, to those before me, or the phantoms after. There is no room for thought here, though there is plenty of time enough to think. More succinctly it is not recommended, I cannot. The confrontation with finality is all too intimate here, and all too abrupt. To be certain.
It troubles me to think I struggle with the thoughts of an old man, then again there are just as many dead whose ideas and reason advanced not a day beyond the comprehensions of infancy. Here is one, and I cannot explain. The best I can do now is promise myself I will dally about these thoughts no more.
It is mine now to turn the soil, and reconnect with the earth, but not to remember. There is no need to remember what is not forgotten. Just as there is no reason to be mindful of the inevitable.
Thank the rotation of spheres for the sun which gets in my eyes, that there can be nothing more to see. I am also glad for once that it is not warm, the cold under my skin means I do not have to feel. And thank providence for the wind that stirs just now, just enough to be disquieting. You will do the rest.
Carry away these long thoughts, just like the leaves from the trees, the flag from the pole, and the smoke from the fires somewhere distant. Anything I would say now is best served somewhere else, whether it be to where the wind blows, or just in time. They don't belong here, not these ideas, not these words, not these people. Nothing does.
And still they persist, these thoughts. Just like all things. Just like there is always work to be done.
It was, I suppose, what one would call unseasonably cold today. Compounding this being so was an intermittent breeze, not strong enough to be noticed, but vital enough to be real. And with the late afternoon soon peering in beneath the brim of my hat there is no room for immediate, or familiar thoughts.
Just the sort that linger.
To think that there will be someone I've not yet met, or as yet has not been created who will care enough for my remains after I have left this place is mind-boggling.
But I do my best not to press this issue, to those before me, or the phantoms after. There is no room for thought here, though there is plenty of time enough to think. More succinctly it is not recommended, I cannot. The confrontation with finality is all too intimate here, and all too abrupt. To be certain.
It troubles me to think I struggle with the thoughts of an old man, then again there are just as many dead whose ideas and reason advanced not a day beyond the comprehensions of infancy. Here is one, and I cannot explain. The best I can do now is promise myself I will dally about these thoughts no more.
It is mine now to turn the soil, and reconnect with the earth, but not to remember. There is no need to remember what is not forgotten. Just as there is no reason to be mindful of the inevitable.
Thank the rotation of spheres for the sun which gets in my eyes, that there can be nothing more to see. I am also glad for once that it is not warm, the cold under my skin means I do not have to feel. And thank providence for the wind that stirs just now, just enough to be disquieting. You will do the rest.
Carry away these long thoughts, just like the leaves from the trees, the flag from the pole, and the smoke from the fires somewhere distant. Anything I would say now is best served somewhere else, whether it be to where the wind blows, or just in time. They don't belong here, not these ideas, not these words, not these people. Nothing does.
And still they persist, these thoughts. Just like all things. Just like there is always work to be done.
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