Invisible Thief

A poem on inheritance, choice, and what survives us

Note: This began as an ekphrastic poem dedicated to a plant that lives more than a thousand years. It advanced later in the day working with guided meditations and prompts provided by Jerrice Baptiste.

Welwitschia Mirabilis #0707-22411 (2,000 years old; Namib-Naukluft Desert, Namibia) photo by Rachel Sussman.

Lifetimes, life lines, threads in time and space.
To all of life that comes and goes,
and what we’re yet to embrace,
within this mystery we move through,
I dedicate a brief moment of inquiry. 

The past is more than a direction or collection, 
nor just a binary path between this way or that.
It’s a web of ever-mounting choices,
leaning left or right in the ever-bending circuitry. 
On or off? Right or wrong? 
Choices made,
a song sung.

I try to sum up life in a single sentence.
Who am I in the sea of repentance?
The bloodletting, the regretting,
the never-ending prayer for peace.
A cup seen half-empty or half-full? 
An old cliché that serves the bill. 

I need you, Uncle Bob. 
You left way too soon. 
Behind those shades on a desert afternoon. 
You watched the bomb, a shiny new thing. 
That flash of light, 
the mushroom cloud, 
that invisible thief.
It pierced your skin,
left no relief, no visible scar,
no burns, no marks,
yet deep within
something snapped.

The cells heard him loud and clear,
transcending and dissolving walls
a viral explosion within. 
And I was left to wonder if it begins 
for everyone in such profusion.
Cells divide in a feverish slide toward chaos and confusion.

We wrestle from dawn to dusk
to dominate the thought stream.
Back-and-forth it goes between what I think and what I know.
Within me and all around me,
like a shark in a bowl.
I swim in this illusion,
afloat a living soul. 

Some things matter. Some things count. 
The rest flow past as background sounds
Discordant notes and beats out of time,
words that stumble while seeking to rhyme
in a song sung for no one,
the very last line. 

Lightning flickers somewhere in the distance.
He walks alone as rain begins to fall from darkened skies. 
A wall of black clouds advances and the winds begin to rise.
Rule number one survivors must shun 
the beckoning shelter of the tallest tree.
Better to plunge into the sea of short grasses
to safely wait for the storm to pass. 
As bolts and flashes turn flames to ashes,
a mighty oak splits, its splendor crashes,
from towering glory to faded memory.
What once stood tall above us all
Now lies at his feet after the fall.