There has to be something
better than this.
Sometimes I weep. How can there be
so much beauty and so much horror?
But my pensive lamentations are nothing
compared to those who literally suffer
without comfort.

In my own good fortune I dream in peace
through the night hours and the clock
always starts over at dawn.
Breakfast and coffee smell good and
I eat until I’m full. I enjoy art and nature.
Music is inspiring. It elevates my soul.
Our family is close. Love makes me warm all over.
I have everything I need, and some extras.
Even so, I am restless. Discontent. Doubtful.

Dale Carnegie and the Bible both say
You are what you think,
so then I should fill my head with positivity.
I need to get that half-empty glass to half-full.
Maybe things would be different though if I weren’t
scrambling to make up for my losses,
trying to repair the damage of too many decades,
running on borrowed time, helplessly watching
calendar pages fly away in the wind,
the grave always laughing in my face.

Have you ever noticed that children and dogs
have no regard for their ultimate end?
Is it better that way? No concern with eschatology?
I know why the Egyptians were so preoccupied
with prepping for the afterlife.
It’s because death looks so final.
We just cannot seem to accept that inescapable
last scenario, even if we try to invent a better one.
And as far as I know, only one person has come back
from the other side, the One who was dead
and is now alive forevermore,
to give us a glimmer of hope,
that there actually is something
better than this.