January 2020 Free Choice: Deathbed

When the final grains of sand descend,

 

And the hourglass shall not be turned again,

 

What plagues my mind and brings me dread

 

Will be the tears I never shed.

 

But you, my sweet, whom I met by such chance,

 

a beauty suspended in tragic dance.

 

Such agony has hidden behind her smile,

 

“Perhaps we’ll talk for a while.”

 

Her restless eyes and tears so divine

 

At once, I knew it was a sign.

 

For never before had I seen such passion,

 

This was a man who treated love as a ration.

 

And your tears; at which I laughed,

 

that love is now the final raft,

 

to which I hold so desperately,

 

hoping for you to hear this plea:

 

If my laughs induced in you a tear,

 

then I could not reconcile my fear

 

of spilling the fruits of the tree

 

that your love nurtured in me.

 

For now, death is rattling in my ears,

 

But I will die before you see my tears.

 

This was happiness that I neglected to hold

 

And now this dying man has paid the toll.

 

Image: https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/deathbed-scenes-in-fiction

 

This poem came to me when we were discussing the works of John Keats, and his fear of being forgotten after death. My biggest fear is my lack of empathy. Sometimes I hurt other people without ever noticing that I have hurt them, simply because I don’t automatically look to putting myself in other peoples’ shoes. I might laugh at another person’s sadness simply because I see it as a joke, without regard for their internal feelings. This poem really tries to put that forward. When I die, I don’t want people to remember me as a soulless man who laughed at their tears. I think I need a lot of work to get to where I want to be emotionally, and writing this is a great place to begin.

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