She had saved
So much time and money
Only leaving
Too much too due
A well honed busyness
Yielding the best of the bust
A treasured chest
In hard times aplenty
Never the less
Predictably taking
A rugged helm
In a cagey realm
Plotting a cross
Lives less fortunate
To a steer
Clearing millions
For leaves of clover
And first class vocations
Such ruminations milking
To be cowed by no more than won
A gingerly bred man
Running as fast as he can
From what would eat him alive
So telling
In dropping old fox tales
As crossing too
The other side
Like a fish out of water
Or a scorpion getting a head
Of their fabled nature
A version of croaking
A pare for all time
Only to be left
A loan
Know matter
What shrewed investments
And generous self-helpings
She found herself
A sieve
Not the sort she counted on
A full colander emptied
Her labor saving devices
Gave birth
To so little
A listless family planning
Orphaned buy
A catalog of unequalled possessions
For shadowing a life
Reflecting on buy-gone delinquency
So quickly passing
In habiting exquisite coffers
Now coffin for discreet recognition
Mirrorly a pall bearing
In her high tech death bed
Stubbornly sterile
The best care money can buy
As in firm nursery
A weighting her delivery
As an empty car go
A body of controvertible evidence condemned
As howl I get through it
A void
A fading bellow
Of such eternal apprehension
I’m mortal
A rapidly reproaching sunset
Fallowing the light
Oh my brightness
And savvy hews
Will never be herd above
This inferno racket
Of contempt late
Ever wandering about the evil won
I can’t even
Here myself
I’d give
My hole life
Too take notice
Of any body et al
Letting out
A friendish laugh
In compassing
Nay gating
The presents of cloved feat
The beast of burden
Due another’s work
Seeking too earnest
For see
Forever dwelling
Wear you can’t take it
With you
All that
You don’t have
This poem is another reflection on the epic choices we make in our lives. The would-be heroine in this poem settles for the heroin of a profitable job and a trophy husband (who eventually dumps her), only to find herself, perhaps too late, with failing health, facing death with a certain emptiness commensurate with her life. Given busyness passing for worthiness, and material wealth passing for success, what passes for life fades into death.
In this poem, I allude to the fable of the scorpion and the frog, which goes so:
A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, “How do I know you won’t sting me?” The scorpion says, “Because if I do, I will die too.” The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp “Why?” Replies the scorpion: “Its my nature…”
Most would agree that this cynical tail really stings! Deathly self-destruction reverberates potential destruction to any in the vicinity. Whatever constitutes such an irrational nature is a black hole for any logic or reason; worse yet, it resonates with a primal fear of the unknown (death being the great unknown), the proverbial abyss. As long as we live in the shadow of scorpions, we must confront such deathly fear. Of course, death comes to us all, but the river in which we are crossing over to the other side is denoted “denial” on many life maps.
Perhaps the highest state a human can attain is to face one’s own death with equanimity, particularly if it involves laying one’s own life down for another. Most of us deal with our fear of death by justifying the death of others to preserve our own life, or ironically, our “way of life.” This is not truly facing death, it’s trading another’s life for your own; thus, postponing your own facing of death. Avoiding death by dealing out death to others is considered eminently rationale by most. Preserving your own life, avoiding your own death, is viewed as a near-absolute value by most. The right to self-defense is considered common sense. Few would assail it. Though some, like Jesus, Gandhi, or Martin Luther King, Jr., would make poor use of it. The right to surrender one’s life for a higher purpose is considered noble, but beyond expectation for common folk. Nonetheless, transcending one’s self is the only death-defying, even deathless, territory to reside within. Inasmuch as humanity resides in the robustness of life, humans must transcend one’s self. Humanists might consider humanity itself as the larger self to serve and in which to participate. Transcendentalists might consider the larger self to transcend humanity, even transcending humanity plus nature. Either way, only through the whole can we find peace. Accepting that life is bigger than us, and bigger than our death, can give us peace — provided that we are a true devotee of life, not death.
Scorpions, real or perceived, force us to confront our own nature and devotion to life. The proverbial scorpion is perhaps best personified by “terrorists” in present-day America. Terrorists are routinely and conveniently oversimplified to be scorpions. Their nature is portrayed as both intractably irrational and completely predictably self-destructive. In short, subhuman, unable to behave rationally, even in regards to self-preservation. Those scraping the bottom of humanity at least send others to death to protect one’s own version of rationality. We call these folks “generals” or even “Commander-in-Chief.” Labeling that which we feel compelled to kill as subhuman is the only rationale way to preserve our notion of humanity. This shot-full-of-holes rationale is an inhumane shortcut to deal with deathly fear by choosing death, for others
However, any dehumanization of others is a disproportionate focus or complete fixation on the scorpion nature present in humanity (and every human). The potential for manifesting the scorpion nature is part of our nature. The notion of “self” destruction simply rests on our notion of self. If terrorists are not part of humanity, then we are free to kill them without killing part of our “self.” If terrorists are part of humanity, then we are not free to kill them and rationally claim “self” defense, since they are a part of the “self” of humanity. No doubt, some would easily settle for maiming part of humanity, their humanity, to preserve their maimed image of humanity and have a hand in shaping which numerical portion survives the battle. However, life is even larger than humanity, a point that probably has to be conceded by both humanists and transcendentalists. Life does not need humans. Life existed before humans. Life could exist if humans become extinct (probably in grand gestures of “self” preservation). To pay proper homage to life we must choose life as a whole, even if it happens to result in one’s self’s “premature” death (a death brought about by those less than mature). Trusting that the whole of life is more important than our own self creates a harmony that propagates life. Trusting that death is a more expedient way to preserve life is our scorpion nature! One of the beauties of an ordered universe is that some things predictably follow others. Paying homage to the whole of life brings peace to the piece we are. Bringing death continues to confront us with repeating lessens, that death brings death, and killing others is killing our largest self.
Most simply put, from a more highly evolved point of view, killing is “self” destructive. The irrationality of killing is our scorpion nature, a potential actualized when we can only see necessity and are blind to our freedom of choice. Since freedom of choice is a part of human nature that must be manifest for us to be considered human, the denial of this freedom is a denial of our humanity, the death of humanity. It is inhuman to deny that we are free. It is inhumane to deny the freedom of others. Life bids us to more than we merely are. Feel free to choose life!
