Is there really anything to figure out but the gurgling sound of a song bird?
Knowing that a certain chipmunk makes a similar alarm-bell ring.
Is that useful in any way?
A man lives. A man dies.
The life part is long; the death part a stalking mystery taking either moments or years.
But they are inter-twined.
The dying part of the living.
A gene code ticking away death on schedule just as living unfolds in a seemingly forward fashion.
And who exactly is involved in an End Game?
Did the man skiing down the mountain know he would break his neck and die early?
Would he have preferred to see more of the resort below?
Or is the moment of death a subtle choice?
Is it an inhaling of cigarettes to prove biology wrong?
To be the controller.
The decider.
To take the oar from the gods and steer straight into the rocks.
Is that heroism?
And maybe to ask the self every day – how are you choosing to die?
And how are you choosing to live?
Are they the same?
Am I wearing out the body and the heart with a manic athleticism?
Will I drown in a distant sea – far from U.S. medical technicians?
Will a tiny little freckle send cancer from one organ to another?
Will courage, stupidity, chance or plodding methodology be my end?
And if the last, why do I not know my methodology?
Even if the hours are filled with good habits, those kill just the same.
Tick, tick, tick.
You are a tree dropping leaves one final time.
No reprieve for a rotting trunk and branches.
A wish to burn freely and cleanly, like a fire well fueled.
A man in control, blowing out his own birthday candles like a suicide.
Nowhere else to go but gone.