On a Subject We Dare Not Mention

The thought of death creeps in every day, but an outlet emerges -- a character in my novel.

Edisto Island, SC. Photography by gg.

I fear death.
There, I said it.
I never say it.
I never admit it.
Never share it.
But now I do. With you.
I think about death every day.
I think.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night,
when I am awakened by my angry hands
that howl and screech and jolt me
with lightning bolts.
And that makes me worry
that someday soon I won’t even be able to hold
a penny
were I to pick it up from the floor.
Not that I would stoop so low
as to pick up a penny
because a penny is worth more for its copper
than its buying power.
And besides, my hands can’t pick up a penny anymore.

Sometimes I think of death in the middle of the day
when the sun is out
and the trees are swaying
and I am standing in my vegetable garden
or I am in the woods
and I close my eyes and
try to make out the birds’ voices
singing to each other,
me, the eavesdropper, trying
to differentiate one from the other,
trying to figure out what it is they are saying.
Will I be able to hear the birds when I die?

Sometimes, often, actually,
I think of death
right here in my basement,
my writing cave,
as I shape and cajole and let loose
a story that has rattled around in my brain
for so long I can’t remember when it was not there.
Is it an accident that one of my characters,
one of the main characters, now,
in this massive story, massive piece of fiction, massive project,
is a man half-dead?

Suspended between worlds
he is trying to figure out where he is
why he is
what he is
who he is
and what the question is
that he must answer
in order to pass through
to wherever it is that he is headed.

No. It is no accident.
There are no coincidences in the world.
I want the man to become a hawk,
that is where he is going.
I have decided this.
That he becomes
a noble, powerful, sacred bird
who will fly high above the world
with eyes like microscopes
able to see even the smallest movement
the slightest disturbance
in the woods’ floor,
a tiny creature unawares
or a tiny creature fully aware
but careless,
darting across the oak leaves
hesitating, taking too long.

This is a safer place in my mind
to think of death,
in the hollows
along a road winding through the hills,
the backwaters
with still, black reflections
where lurk
ideas not yet found,
emotions not yet felt.

Death is safe there,
in my imagination,
to offset the realization
that my body is failing,
is on its downward slide.
No longer do I feel 18,
or 28,
or even 48.

I find myself spending more time looking back
than forward,
which may be why I am so feverish
of late,
why I have piled up so many projects
of joy but of exertion, too.
Am I doing these things as distraction?
As a way to avoid
the unresolved question I fear?
It is an unresolvable question of course,
and that’s where the true fear lies,
the not knowing, the not controlling.
That is what I fear.