Rumors of Death and Beauty
“We wake, if we ever wake at all, to mystery, rumors of death, beauty, violence…”
― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
We learn to count by number. There were two raccoons and two snakes dead on this three-quarter mile stretch of road these past seven days. I have also noted in the recent past that I wrote more before I had a cell phone, I ate more after my childhood teeth came in, I lived more after I was born. Like the Piraha tribe of Brazil would say, these reflect “some” and “more.” We must therefore conclude that there is no distinct telling between birth, death, teeth and cell phones.
Too much calls our attention, and time darts along. Our feet press hard in the stirrup of time. I stopped for breath once and woke seven years later. Seasons had stumbled over themselves in a sprint toward a greedy end. There are broken fences and clothes on the line. Let them be.
The neighbor drops off a bag of surplus apples. “I can’t eat all these,” she says. Even heavy lines across her elderly face become beautiful when she smiles. They remind us of our too-quickly passing days, and that one day we’ll need to smile like that to be called beautiful too.
But will today feel like yesterday or tomorrow like today, here where the skies amble wild over miles of corn, and soybeans harvest late? Life is one long day interrupted by the waxing and waning light intensity we call time, and every interruption evinces change. Life has jabbed us, tripped us up, upended us. We’ve embraced the limp of age, the halting amble toward obscurity: our greatest fear. We are fragile things, a thump away from non-existence. With the heat of a thousand suns, we blaze toward extinction. And note that if you pet an analogy once, it never leaves you alone.
We cringe at the stoicism surrounding death. It’s not a party, we say, but neither is it a funeral. We believe in something. Always have. That thing beyond reach, a place that must exist. We cringe at the lack of hope, and sorrow for those who have none. Cringe in the midst of complacency and surrender to nothingness. Heaven will be redwing blackbirds, whippoorwills and nuthatches, we say. All songbirds will sing their own songs — one big choir in flight. No feathers will fall, no dying whimpers.
What’s it all about, this scrambling to be heard. If something must be said, let the stars do it, let the wind eek its secrets and a lone hawk scribe the sky. Humanity’s droning is a risky business: universal madness may be the only viable outcome, a planet gone to seed. If I die tomorrow, scour the sky for a song thrush, hear me sing, and sing along. If I die tomorrow, wage a new war on the need for peace; stop the hate; hug the living. If I die tomorrow, hike a good pace near a cornfield’s edge, and somewhere alongside you, I’ll be hiking too.
See, we’re all infected — we’re all going — but until then, don’t we look great wandering CrazyTown together? We may be brave or old or longing, and still we have nothing to lose; this isn’t the time for denial. So I’ve already written my epitaph, if those responsible for my gravestone will go along with it: Of dubious beginnings and with the help of a loving family, strong faith, and slightly twisted sense of humor, she did what she could to leave a shiny mark on this world.
At the very least, know why you’re here; never forget to question; begin where you were yesterday all over again, better this time; brake for poems, near-poems, rhyming poems, bad poems; live a little laughter, live a little louder. And there’s a table at Ravenswood Tavern on Sounding Street we all need to visit.
Chila Woychik (she/her) is originally from the beautiful land of Bavaria. She has been published in Cimarron, Passages North, and others, and has an essay collection, Singing the Land: A Rural Chronology (Shanti Arts, 2020). She won Storm Cellar’s Flash Majeure Contest and Emry’s Linda Julian Creative Nonfiction Award. She currently splits her time between Iowa and Georgia, and edits the Eastern Iowa Review. www.chilawoychik.com
