An Act Of Anticipation

We are motion. Finger tapping, knees shaking, continuous motion.  The rhythmic beat of the marathon heart propels the legs in constant flux.  The intensity of modern life grabs us by the scruff of the neck and thrusts into each new day. We over eat, over exercise, over work.  Running in countless circles the path often leads back to the starting point.  But the voyage is anything but futile.  Futility is stillness. 

And stillness is death.  Except in the movies.  In the movies, dying is kinetic.  First laughing, then crying, some hugging, and a head falls to the side as the music begins. Boom, boom, boom, the curtain drops and the credits role.

But I have seen death in it's myriad shades and forms. More often than not, it is anything but quick.  Instead, bodies lie almost lifeless in dark rooms with family members gathered in a semicircle around the convalescent bed.  The second hand meanders as the visitors wait and are haunted by the slow, motionless, disturbing passage of time. 

We are befuddled by the absence of initiation.  So entrenched in the act of powering up, we become cataplectic at the unfolding of a life.  Sometimes days pass.  The barrel is loaded and griefs trigger is cocked.  Waiting for death is an act of anticipation. 

It is always this way.  The calm before the storm.  The stillness amidst turbulence. 

One last moment to surface and take a deep breath,

before submerging in the deep dark ocean