Five Poems by Nolo Segundo

 

An Old Poet’s Walk Through An Old Graveyard

 

He always liked to walk among the dead---

for him is was a secret pleasure to imagine

the lives of once breathing, thinking beings.

He would stop at each tombstone, curious

perhaps more than reverent, for he had long

known the body was just a set of clothes

the soul wears in a world where appearances

matter more it seems than what lay inside…

 

The old man liked to compare his years to

those chalked on each stone, continually

amazed that so many had died with fewer

years on their belts, so to speak—not

that he thought his 74 winters was a lot:

yet seen backwards in time, all the summers

and all the snows and all the fallings of dried

out leaves dying dressed in colour like kings,

all those memories wouldn’t fill a large

basket in that living library called memory.

 

There was a newish looking gravestone with

one of those weather resistant photos of a

handsome young man who died in his 24th

year—the old man always wondered how

the young die-- by a rare illness, or suicide,

or was he doing something he should not

have been doing, and karma took notice?

 

In the years practicing his little lauded hobby

the old poet found old graveyards to be best,

for old graveyards have markers of lives that

turned to dust a long, long time ago: 100, 200

years for some-- but for the old poet it was as

though they had died yesterday, because they

were new to him, and his mind’s eye could see

them all living life large again in their own slice

of time, in their own worlds, with beauty and

pain, with loss and joy, with grace and fear….

 

There were so many folks to visit: each one

whose little stone house he stopped by he

introduced himself to, said hello, wished

them well, and wondered about what sort

of life the woman who died at 36 had lead,

or the really old man of 98 with the funny,

old fashioned name—did he regret missing

the century mark, the old poet wondered.

 

Some graves he did not like to see, for

they were the graves of babes, who

left the world less than a year after

they had entered it with such promise--

some died within weeks or months,

a few died the day they were born--

all spoke in stone of hearts broken,

of hope stolen, of love taken away….

Sentience

 

Is it a blessing or

A curse to know

We are born to die?

Should we rejoice,

Be thankful for

Feeling time's blood

Passing through

Our lives, or do we

Regret our ever

Aging bodies as

Skin thins and joints

Creak like the unoiled

Hinges on a front door

Of an old house soon

To be abandoned?

 

This knowing, this

Ever knowing….

Why is but one

Species out of

Millions so blessed—

Or has it just been

Burdened, so heavy

With that unending

Sense of good, of evil,

Permeating each life,

A cognizance honed

By our early sins and

Petty wrongs, those

Child-born regrets?

 

And why must we

Always see the gap,

Sometimes a sliver

But often a chasm

Between what is and

What could be…?

Why are we never

Satisfied?

Why are we never

Done?

 

What, or Who gave us

This nagging, incessant,

Relentless awareness,

And why?

For is it not found

In every unhappy

Involvement …the

Failed marriage,

An estranged child,

The bitter traitor?

Does it not torment

The mind of the

Suicide plunging

In a vain attempt

To escape this very

Personal, unique,

Most singular "gift".

 

Yet gift it is, for we are

The judging animal, and

The weighing animal,

Always measuring,

Asking, seeking,

Hungering—never

Really satisfied….

WILL MY SOUL FLY?

 

Will my soul fly

When I die…

Will my soul soar

O’er the Alps,

The Rockies, the Andes,

And the Himalayas?

 

Will my soul see

The Aurora Borealis

Finally?

 

Will my soul

Dive deep, deep

Into the oceans,

Seeing beauty

And creatures

Unknown to

To those who

Live on dry land?

 

Will my soul slip

Time’s iron hold,

Then to skip, at will,

Through the Ages,

Back and forth

Like an unruly child,

(the dream of sages)

Knowing the faces

Of Caesar stabbed,

Of Joan of Arc burning,

Of Lincoln laughing,

Seeing too the places

Where the lions fed

On the Christian saints,

Where soldiers died

In battles long over,

Where Hitler lied

And Jesus cried?

 

And will my soul then

speed through our vast

Universe, far faster

than the speed of light,

faster than even thought

as it takes in billions

of stars and trillions

of other worlds, and

begins, just begins

to feel how really

big God is…?

I Have Been to Places of Great Death

I have been to places of great death:

Walking the battlefield of Gettysburg,

As a lusty young man of no firm belief

Who stepped between the great rocks

Of Devil’s Den and felt his soul shudder

as though he had been a soldier there,

and died in fear a long, long time ago.

 

I taught my tongue to the gentle Khmers

As civil war raged and the killing fields

Were being sown—I left before the

Heartless murdering began, the killing

Of over a million: teachers and students,

Doctors and farmers, the old, the young,

Each with a photo taken before dying,

Their pictures taped to classroom walls.

 

And when I visited Hiroshima, now myself

Chastened by death’s touch, and knowing

My soul real, knowing of meaning absolute

And of unseen forces that work good or ill,

As I stood at the first ground zero, I once

Again shuddered to feel the pull of madness

(though I knew not if it was my own or some

Remains of that evil which brought the fire

And brimstone of a worldwide war….)

 

But by then I knew I could pray, and so

Opened my desperate heart and sought

His mercy—and then I saw a sort of angel,

Who took me from that place of insanity,

Healing me while we wandered by the

Beauty of the Inland Sea as my storm

Calmed and left me, never to return…. 

 

I have been to places of great death, and

I have felt death’s cold, careless hands.

But I know now what death itself fears:

The Light, the light eternal which carries

Souls beyond time itself, like the winds

Of a Love exceeding all understanding.

Vanity And Dust

 

Vanity and dust,

Dust and vanity—

Is that all we are?

Clashing egos,

Scheming, soulless,

Taking and getting

Only to lose all to

That cheater Death?

 

When all you love

Will one day turn

To dust, and none

Can beat emptiness,

Then you must pick—

That all is but chance,

Or all is planned, and

Luck is the illusion…

Sentience a cruel joke,

Or a divine-like gift…

And you are a fluke,

Or one tugged by God.

Nolo Segundo, pen name of L.J. Carber, became a widely published poet in his early 70's in over 80 literary journals/anthologies in 7 countries and two trade book collections: The Enormity of Existence [2020] and Of Ether and Earth [2021]. Both titles and much of his work reflect the awareness he's had since having at 24 a near-death experience whilst almost drowning in a Vermont river, which brutally shattered his former faith in materialism, the belief that only matter is real. [And no, the NDE was definitely not of the 'white light' sort, but then his near-drowning was not accidental.] Nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2022, he's a retired teacher (America, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia) who has been married 42 years to a smart and beautiful Taiwanese woman.