Memento Mori
March 31 2013

Cluster flies
lie scattered
by the window sash,
my kitchen counter
dappled with sun.
Their black cadaverous bodies
are weightless husks,
effortlessly brushed
into the trash.

Their lives perplex me,

the beginning and ending

the purpose they serve.
How they wedged-in
over-wintered
emerged in spring,
survived the season

dormant, unseen.

Only to die
after all this time
for no apparent reason.

Single-minded creatures, seeking sun
they hurtle against the glass
buzzing fiercely,
zero-in
on sizzling lights.
Appear as if from nowhere
raining down, piling up,
a memento mori
in this budding season,
when the sun returns
the world's reborn.

In another spring, another birthday,
when I can't help but think
I am a year closer to death,
its inevitability
less and less
theoretical.
I have often thought
about the indignities of age
how death will come.
But not so much
the existential pain
of finality,
that last sentient moment
looking over the edge
into absolute nothing.

All my life
my nose
has been pressed against the glass
fierce with desire, attachment,
wanting what others have

wanting more.

Only to find, at the very end, we are equal at last,
identical eyes, staring blankly
pupils empty, black.
The merciless levelling
of death,
all our uniqueness, potential
reduced to husks.

As an indifferent world
relentlessly turns,

the sun

exerts its steady pull.

I feel conflicted, writing a poem as black as this. Or perhaps it's not the writing, so much, as exposing the darkness.

Am I right to imagine that my turn of mind isn't unusually morbid, that we are all pre-occupied by mortality? Because death is the most absolute mystery, and so who cannot help but be fascinated? Because, in it's inexorable finality, it's the only experience we know we all will share. And because, most important of all, it's our awareness of death that gives life its urgency and sweetness. So rather than a paralyzing act of fear and anxiety, reflecting on death becomes a deliberate act of gratitude, a goad to living well.

I suppose some aren't so pre-occupied. Perhaps they're able to sustain the youthful delusion of immortality, the easy denial. Or perhaps -- unlike me -- they have the consolation of religious belief, clinging to the hope of an afterlife, of some greater meaning.

It's interesting to note that there is a convention among portrait painters (or some, anyway) to include a tiny fly somewhere in the piece -- a memento mori: I suppose as a sobering reminder of mortality; a humble counterpoint to the narcissism of immortalizing oneself in paint. As if a likeness could confer posterity!

I doubt many people want to read poems like this. And, as I said, I'm reluctant to inflict my angst upon an unsuspecting world. But every once in awhile, a poem like this slips out. After all, it's a good time of year to write about cluster flies, and in so doing the topic of death becomes inevitable. Although several years ago I also wrote about these mysterious creatures, and that piece came out more narrative in style and more amused in tone. So perhaps it's age that has made me darker. Or perhaps enough time has passed, and I need once again to exorcise the darkness. Or perhaps it's my craft that has evolved: that I've become more skilful with metaphor, and more comfortable writing in the first person.

Anyway, I think the poem works well enough. And I hope it resonates with some readers, at least.