On Being Heard

Written
2011

 On Being Heard

 

       When I can no longer hear,      

              I want to be heard.

       When I can no longer see,

              I want to be seen.

       Joining the great void

              carries no fright.

       This no place with no-present,

              no-past and no-future,

              I have imagined for all my years.

       My footprints in beach sand

              soon smooth out,

              and I never walked there.

       I seek no immortality,

              angel’s wings,

               nor devil’s suit and tie.

       I want a place-marker

              to say I was here

              for a while.             

       A walk through the local cemetery

              allows me to view names

              carved in stone. 

        

As I walk among the slabs of marble

               I hear the voice

              of departed friends.      

       Hiking in the high Rockies

              I find names and dates of those

              who wanted us to know they existed.

       Books, CDs, and poems can’t go with me;

              for I go no where

              and will have no need of them.

       They have meaning only to me,

               when they become a burden

               they will be tossed.

       But they are my caved marble      

              telling all that I was here

              as loudly as a name in stone.

       Validation will be

              that I am heard

             when I can hear no more.

 

Doug Minnis

May25, 2011

              

Notes
A great singer of my time, Carly Simon, had a song titled " You Are so Vain" in which the line: "You'r so vain I bet you think this song is about you". When I post this there will be a number of good friends who will thank me for putting our conversations into a poem. For this is what we often talk about. Often it is about downsizing to match our age. Each item we toss , give away or mark for a heir is just one more part of us lost for a beyond death presence among the living. All of us want to be heard. The grave marker is for Louis Tikas the Greek American hero of the Ludlow Massacre. He is heard every day and those who assassinated him are long gone and are no longer heard. Louis speaks loudly through the pictured legs that belong to Colorado's Poet Laureate, David Mason who has added one more very loud voice for Louis Tikas.
Death and Dying