the “gift” of mortality
mortality is a gift?
that’s how Tolkien described the immortal elves’ reaction
to the necessary limit to human life,
some time in evolutionary history
our ancestors saw themselves in the mirror of passing time
and considered their impending absence,
how much more acute a moment can feel
when one realizes how transient the present can be,
as near as we can tell,
the consciousness of plant and animal lives the moment
and does not obsess about when one will not be here for that moment
in a future that can and should be imagined,
I continue to step out of the moment:
to live the moment fully, then to realize its transience,
there is sorrow and fear that can then beat down upon me,
but when I re-insert into the moment,
how much more intensely I can feel the present,
for I have known of the future and remembered the past.
by Henry H. Walker
August 15, ’16
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