{"id":248,"date":"2022-09-20T10:50:21","date_gmt":"2022-09-20T14:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pensivejournal.com\/?p=248"},"modified":"2022-09-20T10:50:21","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T14:50:21","slug":"choosing-my-afterlife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pensivejournal.com\/poetry\/choosing-my-afterlife\/","title":{"rendered":"Choosing My Afterlife"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After my cardiac arrest,<br \/>\nthe cardiologist said, <em>you\u2019re lucky,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>you were dead for a few minutes.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s something, but I\u2019m still not sure what.<br \/>\nBeing dead was a blank,<br \/>\nwhich, lately, I\u2019ve taken as an invitation<br \/>\nto fill in my afterlife.<\/p>\n<p>In it, I ask a dodo bird for forgiveness<br \/>\nand watch that river of passenger pigeons<br \/>\nAudubon watched for days.<\/p>\n<p>I relish seeing aurochs and great auks<br \/>\nand, oh, so many plants and tree leaves<br \/>\nI\u2019ve seen only as fossils in museums.<br \/>\nAnd just one glance<br \/>\nat the Lord God Bird is paradise.<\/p>\n<p>In my afterlife, I finally know<br \/>\ncontrol has nothing to do with me.<br \/>\nAnd everyone\u2019s \u201cI\u201d is lower case,<br \/>\nfully human, as we never could be<br \/>\nwhen we were alive,<br \/>\nalways shoving love out where it most belonged.<\/p>\n<p>Cruelty will at last be seen for what it is\u2014<br \/>\na choice we make when no understands<br \/>\nwho anyone else really is.<\/p>\n<p>In my afterlife, all the dead in me<br \/>\nare waiting for my postponed arrival.<br \/>\nI so much want to have them<br \/>\nall around me\u2014<\/p>\n<p>my grandfather pouring melted lead<br \/>\ninto sinker forms for spring fishing,<br \/>\nmy aunt and grandmother clicking away<br \/>\nat one of those crochet pieces<br \/>\nI find in all the drawers of my parents\u2019 house,<\/p>\n<p>and my parents, of course, still bickering<br \/>\nover the smallest things,<br \/>\nand keeping each other alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After my cardiac arrest, the cardiologist said, you\u2019re lucky, you were dead for a few minutes. That\u2019s something, but I\u2019m still not sure what. Being dead was a blank, which, lately, I\u2019ve taken as an invitation to fill in my afterlife. In it, I ask a dodo bird for forgiveness and watch that river of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"issue":[7],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Choosing My Afterlife | Pensive Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pensivejournal.com\/poetry\/choosing-my-afterlife\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Choosing My Afterlife | Pensive Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After my cardiac arrest, the cardiologist said, you\u2019re lucky, you were dead for a few minutes. 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