In not so many years from now or sooner
My end of days will bring a final compilation
To whatever last word I have written and shared
Completing the collection of images I have gathered.
A few people tell me sometimes they like what I write
Putting words together about my thoughts and feelings
Giving me affirmation for what comes together slowly
Being easier for me to write carefully than to think out
loud.
A few people tell me sometimes they like my photographs
Finding pleasure in the beauty of wildlife in a nature scene
Looking at images that frame my view of a picture of a place
Seeing what I see captured as a still precious moment.
These are the people who matter most to me
The only critics whose reviews are personal knowing me
As an imperfect person who means well hopefully forgiven
When my attention drifts if I am lost in thought.
Perhaps in the years ahead someone will look over
The accumulation of words and images I have produced
Thinking their thoughts about whatever matters to them
Knowing it no longer matters to me what they think.
More likely these words will disappear along with the images
Blending into the background of the collective commons
But permanence is not the point of doing what I do
What matters is how the act of creating infuses being alive.
We have a wooden toy truck we keep on display
Made by my partner's father who made the oak furniture now ours
Beautifully worked wood expressing his joy in the craft
Something for us to cherish the memory of him.
Those toys he made to give away at a children’s shelter
Wishing a truck could bring happiness to a child
Remain with us as a symbol of his kind and caring self
While I will leave nothing of substance like that good deed.
Perhaps a poem can serve as well by saying something kindly
Some words to give comfort when our lives are most difficult
Providing solace like an embrace to know you are loved
Meaning with feeling to console a person in distress.
If perchance you are reading this long after I am gone
Your world has changed in ways unknown to me
As has the world I have known been largely lost to you
But possibly something resonates with you.
That would make a bridge across our temporal life spans
Into your different context constructing a different meaning
Larger than my limited understanding of human existence
So circumscribed by the circumstances of my time here.
