Why Bother Dying?
by Odin Roark

Instead...

Revisit the child within,
ask if Van Gogh hadn't experienced the sunflower
would we know yellow and ochre as intimate friends?

Would music's rapture remain alive without
Pavarotti's high C,
Coltrane's "Sheets of Sound,"
a Shostakovich 1905 Russia?

Could scented memories remain permanent
were ocean salt mere granules in darkness,
pine needle sap but sorrow of nature's longing,
Darfur's wafts of boiled rice simply yesterdays past?

And what of touch
given freely by a baby's hand,
a mother's lips,
a feline's paw?

Is all such experience not of permanent storage,
to be accessed anytime
from the attic of our minds,
forever willing to give,
Receive?

Can taste ever be forgotten from
virgin mountain streams,
warm milk from mothers infinitum,
sorrow’s brackish tears of resolve?

Such as it is…

Aging asks to be but temporary,
committing not to gravity,
tissue disintegration,
or synaptic malaise--
relying rather on our embracing Time,
allowing wisdom to nurture cyclic preparation,
life's pigments layered upon a limitless canvas.

Give Time its due.
Colors will dry.
Purity of vision will appear,
absolute and bodiless as horizons awaiting tomorrow's sunrise,
man’s vision awaiting another edge ever-changing.

For some
Only denial

For others,

the journey proceeds
as a perpetual hourglass,
remaining in motion,
generating new arrangements,
allowing the cosmic sand to expand its window,
giving reflection back to the sun,
renewing passion’s fire,
generating tenacity,
fostering endless vibrations.

So…

Why bother dying?