Who are we when we are not there?

This question I wondered the other day

I was in between worlds

My tyres were being changed

Car out of action

So I was sitting on a park bench

eating breakfast

waiting to be on my way

I was neither travelling

Yet

Nor at home

But I was still in my home town

So not very far away from it

And I thought of my dog

(for it is only dogs that think of us

every

single

moment

that we are gone)

She was sitting at home

Waiting

For someone who wasn’t quite gone

But wasn’t coming home

either

neither

Yet

Which got me to thinking of death

Who was I

Where was I

When I had left

When I was dead

Not here

But no idea where

I would be

What would be left

of me

When I was dead

Clothes

Too many

But other than favourite things

Things I wore often

There was nothing of me in the material

They were

just things

And I had so many things empty of me

Just sitting around

Waiting

Cameras

Computers

Stuff gathering fluff

But where was I and what was left and where would it be found

if I wasn’t around

In my books?

The things that I read, had chosen

Laid on a couch or in bed

Reading

Gathering meaning

Yet they only meant something to me

Not to them

or to you

Or to anyone else

Each reader would gain their own version of whatever it was that books impart through the filter and their own art

But they wouldn’t have me

in their pages

Not unless I had written my own by then

Which I certainly hope to

And I thought about that as well as I drank my overly milky coffee and thought that things were too watered down these days

To weak

Diluted

If I was to write a book it would be short

Sharp

To the point and not a convoluted

meandering

overwritten thing

Then I realised

I had already written

Was published

I hit “publish” nearly every single day

Which made me blink

think

That this blog is something I would have left

I would have this eternal conversation

With the internet

My words

Poetry

A few photos

Things that I thought

and said

Past tense of course

Perhaps lacking sense given time I would have changed my mind about some things

I have already

But they were still mine 

And I couldn’t change them in the minds into which they had been written

So

They would just live on

Stuck in time

For perpetuity

My last post would one day be

truly

my

last

post

which is more than a lot of people get

to keep

here on earth

Words

That is all we are in the end

What we say

Who we say we are

What we write about

What we believe

Scattered like leaves

That pile up in vacant logs

At the end of Autumn

So I will be this blog

and

perhaps a little more

Eventually some whitened bones

My last clothes

Whatever they put me in to go in the ground

Or shall I be burnt

and scattered

A thousand ashes

to match

A thousand bits of paper

That will go on longer

than the charred

little bits of skin

Sorry

a little bit morbid sounding

A little gross

But it isn’t what I was feeling

I was feeling quite good

Then, when I thought it

and now,

when I wrote it

Because

The funny thing is

that whilst we are not watching

words

do

live

grow

thrive

Have lives of their own

When I look back at an old  post

one from ages ago

that I hardly remember

The number of likes has increased

or someone comments

When this happened the other day

It cemented a small spot inside me

A timeless plaque

An indelible mark

Smudged gently down the column near my name

They can bury my body

Or scatter my bits of flesh

But that

Worried

Anxious

Fretful

Part of internal dialogue that whispered

some nights over the inevitability of death

Tumbling over and over in my mind

Settled

Was quiet

After all is said and done and written

It comes to us all

Death

Yet our words live on

And to a writer

That fact is something deeply comforting to contemplate

And I’m sorry but I must continue to ramble

amble around this topic

Just for a minute

Because thinking of words this way

turned serious

And as I thought of my written ones

Along came the verbal

the ones that I had said

Perhaps in haste

Anger

Frustration

Annoyance

Sadness

Despair

Worry

The ones that had tumbled out pushed by a mood

An emotion

Commotion

And

A

moment of caution

Entered my mind

What

If

I

Was

Remembered for them also

The unkind

The unjust

The momentary loss

of temper

reason

even

sanity

Like a speeding boat we leave a wake

Yet some things never settle again

Subside

Or are forgotten

But must be lived with

Even after death

Even after we are gone

Words

That we said

Hang

Suspended

In other minds

Like me on that park bench

Thinking

Whilst I waited

and

I had eaten what I ate

With no returning to the state

of being empty

of the wasted

calories

On something not quite

up

to

scratch

And somewhere between the third bite of a not very nice salad

And a last sip of the not very good coffee

I decided

I’d better be more careful in future