We Few, We Brave Few (or Cassidy)

We don’t think about death, rather,
It follows us into our rooms, under our sheets and into the hollows of our dreams;
Here shadows pace & pace in visceral unknowns, unable to obey,
Unattached, why awaken these sleeping souls?

As stillness cradles us we cannot notice our final thoughts;
When is the last time we will hear our fathers’ voices in our heads?

This is for the dying fathers, the mourning mothers,
This is
For those that guard us & feed us & clothe us-
For those that shower us and surround us
With breath & absence, with hope & reluctance

All around, life exudes but we few, we brave few,
Forget every name, every hour,
Every face, to push
Farther into nothingness, into an abyss
Until we are forgotten—

The emptiness enclosing absolutely in the impervious mind
That rearranges the order of things.

-B. Medeiros