“Am well. Thinking of you always. Love.”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

What if there is no I, no not-I,
maybe only We, certainly no Them?
What if it is all one light, one darkening
into death, one ineluctable pain?

There is so much more to write poems
about than death, I know. But the birds
simply sing as the humans rise and fall
on waves of plague. Their music
hasn’t changed my mind. There are
nights I just want to sit here alone,
listening to dogs barking
at nothingness, and weep.

So let’s burn it all down, let it shine,
sing, walk down old roads, leaving
the dead behind to bury the dead
as they become more night than day
more peace than fight, more joy
than struggle. Of course I am afraid.
Aren’t you?

I don’t know what God intends to do
about it when I die but my house
will be occupied by not-Me.
Time will stop but continue turning
in its widening gyres.

Maybe we will sit in the dim coffeehouse
under the shaggy eucalyptus
but I will sit apart.
Maybe we will stand in the last bookstore
of eternity, listening
as all the old ink turns to rain.

J. Kyle Kimberlin
Creative Commons Licensed