Eternal

NOTE:  The following poem was plucked from an anthology of poetry entitled “The Changing Seasons of Life”, which was authored by Fred Blahnik and published in book form in 2017.

 

Eternal

By Frederick J. Blahnik

 

I gazed into the clear blue eyes of my newborn daughter

And suddenly realized that I will never die

I have shared love and passed along life

And now I live outside my own body.

 

I know one day my heart will stop beating

My soul will escape then and go wherever it is that liberated souls go

And my body will eventually disintegrate into a modest spadeful of rich humus fertilizing those infernal, eternal dandelions.

 

But I will not be dead…….

That epiphany struck me the instant I witnessed the miracle of birth

Innocent eyes, tiny beating heart, rapidly expanding lungs…..

All miraculously evolved from my original seed

Three times over.

 

I cannot die while a part of me lives

Rather, a part of me has passed the transcendent torch on to a different part of myself

And somewhere down the line I will quite honorably drop out of this tiring race we call life

But that race will continue to be run in my physical absence, rest assured

And–barring unforeseen tragedy–I will always remain in it as an active, albeit invisible, participant.

 

I gazed into the clear blue eyes of my newborn daughter

And realized that I was staring into the future

Not just her future, but my future as well

So long as a part of her walks and breathes and ultimately propagates

I can never die…….

 

No, I will never truly die.