Fumi's Death

Sempervivum

As my friend took her last breaths a hundred miles away,
I lay awake in my bed, here, having trouble breathing.
Though I welcomed it, I didn't need the confirmation call
To tell me what I somehow already knew had happened.

All the euphemistic language used in Death’s company,
Seems to be much more than the cowardice I take it for.
The subterfuge is almost a form of homage to its grandeur:
A kind of plea to not take us up in our friend’s wake.

The sanctimonious pablum regurgitated by a legal idiot
Doesn’t take away the beauty and fun we had at the Market.
I will remember her chasing Sylvia, both of them laughing,
Trying to force her friend to take some money for a gift.

Eternal life is no problem for anyone with common sense;
Despite all the hot air about particles drifting farther apart,
And astrophysicists foreseeing a universal heat death,
If the world is going to end then something will come after.

No, our problem here is with the individual consciousness.
Having a self is just not very likely beyond this embodiment.
Once the shell is burned or buried or picked apart by birds,
The only life we’re going to have is in joining everything else.

That's the lesson of the Sempervivum Fumi sold at Civic Center.