Random Thoughts from a Morning Run

Running through the streets of a concrete casket
Stranger on a bridge had a question, wouldn't ask it
Do you keep your beliefs always just in one basket
Do you call yourself a thief or do you steal and then mask it

Sitting on a train with the world passing by
Floating down a river 'neath a pale blue sky
Do you think that life is set up just so you can die
Or do you think that maybe this is just an alibi

For something we might say is opportunity
As we slip and slide away from commonality
No better than you, and no better than me
are the hearts that we embrace in our humanity

These are just random thoughts from a morning run, abstract, through fleeting glances of light shining through dark spaces, smiles and frowns on passing faces, cars, trains, voices, birds, flowing water, and time escaping from our lives. What will mean something, anything, in our last moments - in that last breath; rhetorical, for thought, contemplation, searching, wondering and wandering.

I have heard a story of a man, dying, waiting for one last glimpse of his wife, his every breath drawing shorter, every moment knowing that when he lay down it would be his last. So he sat on the edge of the bed, looking towards an open door that gave way to a long hallway with hard tile floors. He knew that he should hear steps. He knew that he should hear whispers. He longed just for that one last meeting of their eyes, that one last touch of her hand. Then he could lie down. Then he could pass. His energy waned. To even sit on the edge of the bed in that lonely hospital room was like the most strenuous physical strain of a youthful man, holding onto the bottom rung of a ladder, hands slipping, wrists pulling, shoulders tearing. Then, he could wait no more. The time had come. She was not there. He lay down, his eyes fading into their final loneliness. Had it all been for nothing? Was he to die alone? He was. And he did. And as he slipped away, perhaps he considered the moments that had been given to things less worthy than her love. The shadows overtook the light. The heart slowed. A tear found its way from the corner of his eye, welled, and made its way slowly down his cheek. He felt it ever so faintly and wondered, in his last moment of life, if she would come.