It’s hard to know
who we’re all looking at.
That man lying there,
 still,
pale and motionless.

The air we share in conversation
no longer enters his lungs.
His body transformed,
now an inert decaying object
for this life-giving gas
to unrequitedly bounce against.

Yet no object is seen
by us who share the space.
I see a peaceful man
who could struggle no more
against scaring lungs
that were finally too wounded
to accept such abundant air.

My sadness lingers in his message
that none of us can escape,
my hope rests in his stillness
that there is nothing to fear.

But the others in the room,
they see a father,
who, in their own faces,
seems to live on.

Each face so different
yet intriguingly similar,
perhaps like the memories
carried behind their
soft and wet eyes.

Each one of us
seeing
the same object,
but a different man.

Each one of us
looking
at a part
of our own reflection
slowly fading away.

All of us sharing
this sacred space,
yet each one
finding meaning,
in such a way
that no universal
agreement
might ever be found.

(Poem taken from Begin Again)