The White Flag: A Prose Poem

Written 3/24


Granddad passed away around 12:30.

*

Why is it always death, and pain, and the enormity of human emotion
That open up our minds more closely to the poetic, the sublime?
Is it because of the vastness of the unknown?
Is it because we deal with such large, incomprehensible matters
In different abstract ways? Is my writing an attempt to
Encapsulate my feelings upon facing the divine?
Whatever the cause, am I selfish for celebrating those revelations,
Discovered in death? The insights back into windows of Houses
I thought forever locked?

I'm with my dog, as I write this, in the field behind our home.
The city noises are limited here. I poise, journal on knee, pen in hand,
Atop a fallen tree dragged on to of a pile of organic rubble from
A previous and perhaps long-forgotten field-clearing project.
The dog has tired of running and stands guard beneath me, panting
From his joyous morning of exercise and discovery.
I sit here, shirtless, above the ground, like a white flag in the
Wonderfully forceful wind and warming sun. 
I came here just to take a moment, to connect, to reconnect,
To meditate, and what-have-I, before plunging back
Into the noises and sounds of the busy world - 
The world my grandfather just left behind.
Perhaps, just perhaps, for a moment he has joined me here,
In the wind. Perhaps the tree on which I sit 
Was once a grandfather, too.