17

After This Life

He would have liked to live
To be a hundred, but not like this,
This not-living, not-dying.

Paintings of deep religious feeling
Reached his core the way art can
But never tempted him.

His rational mind saw nothing waiting
On the other side of the barrier
He will shortly cross.

And he was ok with that
Though he remained so curious
As to how the future would work out.

For him it has all stopped here.
Nothing over this line

Except memory


Lari Smith