What's Next?

Poems imagining Life after this life

Photo by Roland Lösslein on Unsplash

A lot of religious traditions invite us to remember our beloved dead at this time of year, when (in this hemisphere) the light fades earlier and the earth cools and quiets. In my own religious tradition this includes celebrating the New Life of those who’ve finished this one. I believe in a life after the life we have now* … but the metaphors with which my tradition describes it make me restless (not to say bored). So I made up some different ones.

* If your tradition and beliefs are different than mine, then peace be with you. Not evangelizing here, just telling stories.

---

THIS RIGHT HERE
Nancy in New Life

Sunday-morning light perpetual
caresses her silvered hair
into a modest practical halo
as she opens first one cupboard, then another
in this miraculous kitchen, murmuring
astonished satisfaction at the bounty
arrayed before her, shaking her head amused
to find that all God’s saints and angels
cannot manage to stack such handsome serving platters
in any sensible way.

Oh, there will be plenty for her to do here.

She starts a new pot of coffee, takes a peek
at what she has in the oven, listens to beloved voices
laughing together in the next room. Elsewhere
in this new and familiar dwelling, she knows,
there are gardens for her to tend and rejoice in,
readings of new work by long-beloved writers,
children — so many children — to gather in 
for stories and for making things together,
endless deep and joyous conversations, endless trails
through endless peaceful hills and valleys
to explore on foot or on fleet silver wheels.

All this is here for her to do, to cherish, to share with those
who welcomed her into this life, with those
whom she will welcome when they follow; for now, though,
this right here — the quiet sputter of the coffee-maker,
the aroma rising from the oven, the eager company 
awaiting her next door, and above all this light,
this loving perpetual Presence — this right here
is the heaven she has practiced all her days, the heaven
she has expected without expecting, the heaven she and Love created
one Sunday-morning kitchen at a time. 

---

MY FATHER IN THE AFTERLIFE					


When the last tide of whiskey rises to drown
his numb limbs, send him relieved into the dark
he always expected, I imagine his unexpected waking, walking
into familiar light and shade, the sun’s warmth thinned
by altitude, the crisp air green-smelling and dusty,
his long stride firm across the broken ground
so familiar he almost forgets how long 
it has been since he walked deep-chested, 
sure-footed, keen eyes narrowed to the ridge and sky ahead,
picking a trail through pathless stands of fir, pine, manzanita,
patches of penstamen, tidy-tips, globe lilies sprung up
among the scree.  The new old confidence
in his step will surprise him less perhaps
than finding himself in company.  Beside him,
keeping pace, is one who looks much like
the old men he once walked so many miles with,
sun-dried, smoke-cured, leather-strong —
much like one or all of them.  If this one speaks,
it will be brief, about the weather or the trail; most of what
he has to say is said by being there.  In front on four feet
ranges another, with sweeping tail, glad muzzle, and bright eyes;
above, and rarely seen — a V-shaped shadow
sometimes on the grass — cranes fly in chorus,
their wild enchanting clatter the voice of dunes
and clouds, rice-checks and canyons,
all meetings of water and earth and sky.

Up slopes and down across chattering creeks
and tumbled shale, rough meadows bright with farewell-to-spring,
along the shores of snow-deep lakes he walks,
companioned and solitary still, to his comfort;
aware somewhere of strength returning still
with every step, aware that light lies long
on the hills, that a campfire lies ahead
just over the next ridge perhaps; flames to sit beside
until the stars are out, deep sleep, another
day’s walk after that.  Wordless, through pursed lips now
he sends a slow tune swinging through the twilight
and listens for the treefrogs to reply.

---

[You can listen to an audio version of the poems by using the little widget above the photograph. If there are any glitches in this week’s reading, so be it; I was lucky to get through it once. ❤️‍🩹 ]

I was invited to write “This Right Here” in 2018, to read at a friend’s memorial service — wife, mother, teacher, counselor, a keen long-distance cyclist, a pillar of multiple communities, practical and funny and unassuming, endlessly and unfussily hospitable, the quiet beating heart of any room she was ever in. When I imagined her at the start of her New Life, I imagined her in a place not unlike the kitchen/pantry at our church — a place whose disorganized shelves and cupboards she must have tidied a hundred times over the years, a place from which she’d organized dozens and dozens of meals. Do I picture her spending all eternity in the kitchen? Absolutely not. But I can picture her getting her bearings there, feeling welcome and familiar, starting to realize how thoroughly she is At Home in every part of this new place.

I wrote the first draft of “My Father in the Afterlife” in 2006, a year or so before my dad died — simply as a way of wishing him a path toward some kind of light. Ever since he was a boy he had spent as much time as he could outdoors, alone or in select company; the rugged indifferent beauty of the wilderness, and the strength and skill with which he knew how to move through it, were his great and lasting joys. When failing strength left him increasingly homebound, it became harder and harder for him to enjoy being alive. He was adamantly not a churchman, so where was I going to imagine him in New Life? Well, in a landscape he would recognize and feel at home in, with company he might welcome, taking the kind of long, long hike he would most enjoy. Do I picture him spending all eternity in the wilderness? Honestly, that could go either way. If he does, I believe he’ll find this new wilderness less indifferent and more welcoming than he expects; if he finds his way to a community in or beyond that wilderness, I think he might find himself in surprising comfort there.

Again: this is me, making stuff up. That’s all that any of us are doing, really, when we talk about what does or doesn’t come next after this life. At the very least, the stuff we makes up gives us a container for our feelings about the people we love and miss, a way to remember and continue their stories. A way, too, maybe, to live deeper into our own.