Alive In My Children

Alive In My Children
© Surazeus
2018 04 14

The way sunlight glows on clear window glass
invokes strange memory I am not sure
is real, spiderweb quivering in my mind
at tingle from music in the next room.

"Because Christians believe the soul persists
before and after our body exists,"
I hear someone in the shadow explain,
"and they believe this body is illusion
because it transforms shape during our lives
and dissolves to dust at death, having faith
that our soul returns to the realm of stars
where the Prime Mover refreshes its light,
they are careless about whether we live
or die, so they are rather quick to kill."

Sharp feeling of horror shivers my spine
with pleasant thrill at thought of sudden death,
so I touch the glass with my trembling hand
and feel its strange transient solidity.

"Because I do not believe God is real,
since it is a convenient concept made
by power-hungry people to sanctify
their rule over the world by divine right,
I do not believe this quick conscious soul,
that animates our bodies with desire,
continues to function after we die.
Therefore I value this body we have,
savoring sweet sensations I perceive
that signify clearly I am still alive,
for I will know nothing when I am gone,
and we will never resurrect from death."

I caress delicate flower petals slowly,
fascinated by frail shape of its being,
then outside the clear glass in blooming trees
the sharp chirp of birds strikes at my soft heart.

I hear tinkle in the next room
like little glass bells hanging on gold wire
over mantelpiece where the photograph
of someone I knew falls onto the floor.

I only see her face in my dreams now,
ghost of my mother floating in the room
where I wish she could be back in her body,
but hope vanishes when I blink my eyes.

I turn away from light and search the shadow
to find my father who died years ago.
"They argue this body is formed from dust
and traps light of the animating soul
thus we should destroy this body of flesh
to free our soul so it returns to God."

Moving out of the dim shadow, my father
touches my face and whispers with soft smile.
"Though the beautiful soul of your sweet mother
vanished when her supple body was broken
because that drunk man crashed into her car,
she lives in you because she made your body
which generates the beauty of your soul.
Though she is gone now you are still alive,
so she lives inside the memes of your soul
and one day she will live reborn again
when you bear a daughter with her bright eyes.
So though this body dies we live forever
in the bodies and the souls of our children."

I pick his picture up off the stone floor
and gaze at his face still so young and fresh,
then watch my son and daughter in the yard
who look so much like my mother and my father,
chasing each other around trunks of trees.

I like the way sunlight glows on clear glass
of the window that reflects my own face
while I watch all my ancestors alive
still laughing in my children with delight.