existential – Singing Over My Bones

I saw a cloud of splendor,
it was floating on a breeze.
I thought of its good fortune,
without a single aim to please.

It was just as it is,
no desire, expectation, or lean,
An elemental compound
without a recollection of me.

I stood in awe of its color,
the blue, the gray, the green,
and as I looked upon it,
my pain within began to scream.

Oh, to be that cloud,
out of every person‘s reach.
Just suspended in forward motion
without the slightest thought of needs.

Then I watched that cloud spill over
from fluff to angry beast,
and in a few short moments
the cloud shed tears as my reprieve.

Perhaps it was looking down
and saw a girl with a cloud all her own.
Then decided to rinse the gray from her,
to strip her down to her gloom-soaked bones.

Maybe the clouds can only
make room for so much gray,
and after that they must unleash
for we both can’t stay that way.

So the cloud gave way to falling,
did the work of its heaviness.
And upon the on-looker below,
a cleansing downpour of tenderness.

I stood with heart wide open,
receiving what was nature’s drenching gift.
And with every drop that rolled off me,
my gray turned from its bitterness.

Fading from the atmosphere,
the cloud drifted to nothingness.
I whispered, “Someday, not just yet,
I’ll join you,
in the place where we don’t exist.”

By: Stacy Johnson, 4-28-19

Do you ever let your mind go to the place where you no longer exist?

You’ve lived. You’ve done your time. You’ve journeyed your path and then you close your eyes and are no more?

Sometimes, while I nap in the recliner, my brain starts reeling with intensity, “GET UP! Get up!! There is so much you haven’t done, so much you haven’t seen, wake up, you’ve got to get to it—-life isn’t waiting.”

I’ll nearly leap from my recliner, gasping for a panic-ridden breath.

Urgency.

I’ll pace the floors a bit, prioritizing cooking dinner, or running away to Paris, or writing the book that’s been brewing…..Mothering wins, I turn on the stove and lose myself in the stir of the hamburger helper.

Slowly, I blend the seasonings and the steam warms my arm…I welcome my existential thoughts back and give myself space to process the sorrow of knowing that it’s true.

One day, I will not be here. The history of humanity will carry on and I will have come and gone. My snippet on the timeline will be set. My face will be remembered by my children, their children, and MAYBE their children. My name will be carved into a stone somewhere, leaving passerby’s wondering, “Who was this beloved mother, Stacy?” If even that…

And while I don’t know about an afterlife, no one on earth really does—we have our choice of myths, metaphors, and musings to satisfy our need for there to be something—-anything after this life. I’ve come accept that just because we believe something with our whole hearts, that doesn’t make it true. And just because we want something to be real, that doesn’t mean it is.

That was hard to reconcile as a former fundamentalist Christian….. oh, how religion keeps us wrapped with its false promises…. an abusive affair indeed.

I stir on, and I let myself feel the warmth. I look at the sunlight beaming in. Dust particles float in the rays, a shimmering glitter dancing suspended in a haze.

I am here now. I am here now. Feel your breath, in through your nose, out through your mouth.

Letting go of what’s to come, holding with gratitude what is.

I am here now. “Okay, kiddos, dinner is served.” Four faces fumble into the kitchen, eager for food. I watch them, they are my sacred endeavors. They are my cycle, my season, my continuation…

One day, I will not exist, but because of them, parts of me always will…

Thanks for reading… XO

Tag: existential

The Work of Clouds

When I don’t Exist…