Here is a poem that Bob wrote this year, after a friend of mine (and former student of Bob's) passed away. Of all the writing Bob has shared with me, this one spoke most directly and beautifully about the paradoxes wrapped up in the inevitable matter of life and death.
--Rob McMaken
Nothing Personal
How can it be otherwise--
than that gravity works on falling bodies,
whether that of my son
from a Florida balcony on spring break,
or an avocado into a farmworker’s basket
without any effort, as if by magic;
than that dangerously low oxygen levels
will constrict blood vessels in the brain of
a firstborn in the womb,
a hiker at Himalayan heights,
a refugee gone overboard in the Mediterranean Sea;
than that a sharp arrow will bring down
the longed for deer as well as
the hapless frontiersman
erecting his fence on native land;
than that a kiss (or more intimate touch)
will work its pleasure or pain
depending on why and who
gives and receives, be you
Jesus or Judas, Romeo or Juliette?
How can it be
that your distant descendants
are less important than your present child?
So you don’t know them.
So what?
You are someone’s great, great, great, great grandchild.
Everyone cannot stay if others are to come.
Where would we all stand?
And they must come, as certainly as we did.
We must learn to share.
On this space-time material sphere,
death is the guarantee that we will.
That we will share the limited goods.
Limit, after all, shows us just how far we can go
and no further.
If we resist,
the leg breaks,
the vocal cord frays,
the body faints.
Limit is the very term of humility.
And there is no happiness for the human heart
without this reverential bow:
I will not go over this line
drawn in the sand
by the hand of the one
whose “heart goes out to all generations.”
All must have their day in the sun;
none is more important than any one.
So . . . savor your time.
You must share.
Rejoice in your portion!
And in others’ too,
If you have the grace for it.
Grace, the gift not subject to
the same constraints of gravity!
Grace, the possibility of impossibilities!
The exception to the rule.
The seeming miracle.
Really, the demonstration of different rules,
deeper rules.
Accessible to all,
played by some.
The saints, the believers, the holy.
Like God, they bow.
And hope.
They no longer hope for their own will,
but for God’s to be done.
God’s will for them is
to enjoy what is given
as they share with their children
and children’s children,
even those children outside their tribe.
Again I say, rejoice in your portion!
All this pain of passing is nothing personal.
Soon no one on the planet
will remember any one who remembers you.
This happens every day for many
who once gazed in mirrors at young faces.
“Man that is born of woman
lives but a little while,” says the Psalm.
“He cometh up like grass
which in time will be mowed down.
He fleeth like a shadow,
and the place that once he knew
remembers him no more.”
Take your turn gracefully,
humbly,
with a bow and, if possible,
a grateful smile.
A gift gone
is nowhere near as noteworthy as
its non-necessary nature in the first place,
no matter how short lived.
And some say
there may be more for the soul
come to the end of this sojourn—
as we each came to this world
from the world of a woman’s womb—
yet another life.
If so, let it be a surprise!
Nothing used as motive for the sharing.
Just another sign
of the generous order,
the predictable rule,
the Primal Child of many children,
millions and millions of children,
taking their turn at play
on the face of this innocent orb,
our earth, under the watchful eyes
of billions and billions of
(ah!)
bright,
blinking stars.
