Proof of Life - Aug 21 2020

Proof of Life

Aug 21 2020

When asked to provide proof of life

they did not mean

an alien planet

or the deepest strata of rock.

Not some new taxonomy

and not a compassionate God;

proving His presence

despite the evidence

we've long been left on our own.

And not an ultrasound

of the beating heart

of some indeterminate soul.

It was a war zone,

and the authorities wanted to know

how to identify

my body after death.

The blemishes at birth

and the scars I have earned

and the features that mark

me alone.

Proof of life, postmortem

in this infernal place

of smoke and rubble and pain,

of fine desert dust

and men on the run

at the sound of planes overhead.

They must be optimists.

That enough of me will be left

to be sure;

that proof I once lived

is proof of life

in a place ruled by death.

In the shallow grave

where the bulldozers doze

and the bodies have started to bloat

they are nothing but anonymous.

Unproven, and soon forgotten,

as all of us

will eventually be,

as life goes on

and there's the next good war

to add to what's been lost.

I was carrying a load of laundry up the stairs, listening to the latest podcast episode of Radiolab. It was about a Lebanese ex-patriot who takes a road trip across America in order to visit all the namesake towns and cities of his place of birth. In the introduction, he talks of an official trip he took to Iraq, and how the soldiers assigned to protect him began by asking for “proof of life”. I was momentarily perplexed by this, until he explained. Was it the irony, or the grim euphemism, or the fatalism of this singular expression – or perhaps all three – that arrested my attention? Whatever it was, I was immediately sure there was a found poem in it. So I dropped the laundry right there, sat down at the computer, and watched as this poem wrote itself.

If you're interested, here's a link to the podcast.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/lebanon-usa