This After Life
I met a woman who said
Hell is right here on earth
She greets each morning
In the bookstore
Name-tag and smile affixed
While I ponder her life
Her gray head bobbing in
Agreeable kindness
Surely this decency
Makes days for others
Bearable – not hell
But she is waiting for
An afterlife; A life after this…
The crisp stillness of a frost-bitten
Morning
The murmuration of the starlings
The fire-red epaulettes of the black birds
The gifts wrought and left
From the arthritic ages of man
The quiet of the graveyard
At sunset a golden light
Hanging the last leaves of fall
The stone-certainty of epitaphs
This life that hides
The longing to adorn
The walls
Of this hell
With beautiful
Engagement,
Achievement
Something better
More smile-worthy
Than responsibility
And a pulse