I am throwing rocks into the mouths
of the cave-hearted people,
who breathe mist and never sleep
for all the nocturnal birds
disturbing the trees. They are trapped
in their forests. I throw rocks
and never hear a single one
hit the bottom.
Wondering what afterlife is like.
Would we now yearn for radioactivity
or find value in toxic waste?
Would we finally understand the meaning
of war on terror, and would we feel it?
The terror. And the absence of war.
I assume there's no war in the afterlife.
I could be wrong. There could be nothing
after death. But if there isn't anywhere
for our minds to be carried over
into a sphere where they exist disembodied,
if our bodies and brains are just
analogous to computers and shut down,
no traces left behind once decay is done,
I like to think that our dead bodies
fortify the bedrock of the earth.
We may have no mind left living
to understand infinity
and we may have no body left living
to navigate our own path
on the earth's surface
but I hope that we do make the caves
and the chasms and also the castles
that don't crumble.
If all that remains is a cave,
empty inside, that's enough
to shelter a person the way
your living body sheltered your mind
4