The Wall

Death is like a black wall
that stretches as high and as far as the eye can see.
There is space for us to move about,
to meet some people and make some decisions,
but it is always there within eyeshot, looming, beckoning, repelling.
Sometimes we are very close to it, walking parallel,
like we could reach out and touch it.
In this eye-blink-of-a-life it is always close, closer than we'd like.

So many of us wander aimlessly, without reference to the wall,
but, strangely enough, it is the wall that gives direction and maybe even purpose.
To think otherwise is a kind of self-delusion and denial
that can rob us of what is possible this side of it.
It can bottle us up in ourselves and we can lose our place in the world.
For some, even in this life, the wall turns liquid and flows out in all directions,
they swim in it, swept along in an infinite sea
that touches all things and fills those that allow it.

Those who resist being swept up and saturated
become dry as a bone, a state some would call "hell" or hellish,
cut off from the LIFE that obliterates barriers of all kinds.
This hell is the true death, the wall that is THE WALL that is within us
and not at the distance of some three score and ten.
It is a reality and awareness to be embraced and utilized
like a fine tool for making exquisite designs on
an otherwise coarse and formless soul.


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