A Distance Unspanned

Death is a distance unspanned
A middle passage between unknown and unknowing.
Unwilled and unwilling;
But the will follows the death
For the rest, who are… concerned…
Life was further from reality
Than the specter of death
which wafted from the tea glasses
Whispering emaciated nothingness
To a beggar born blind.

Reality was further from immanence
And innocence nearer to death
Than all but a child could imagine.
All but a child seduced by songs
with poisonous words from
Dreams scattered to the winds of
3-speed oscillating fans.

Immanence was further from transcendence
Than the mystics envisioned;
And those spirits of ancestors conjured
By holy men in wide enveloping garments
Were shadows of lizards that climbed walls
And drifted into plastic bags
in the corner of the eye.
That enigmatic leap
from concrete
was not death
but life.

And that distance was not measured in roads,
But cups of coffee
And tears,
Stirred, such that life led
to reality,
to immanence
to transcendence,
to life again
in a circle, swirling.