{"sf1_id":1702500,"sf2_id":"P1EvjoeY","title":"Obituary Instructions","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":546,"posted_at":"2021-04-03T05:37:00.000Z","tags":["Iambic pentameter","Poetry","blank verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1702500-obituary-instructions","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/P1EvjoeY","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/6c/3a/6c3ada3e-75b3-4eee-bee5-12119747213e","description":"#17 of poetry\n\nIf anyone is watching me, and is concerned, don't be. Considering the kind of year 2020 was, I think this is understandable.\nI'll try to get all the really bitter stuff at once, so it's over with as soon as possible.","content":"Do not call me an angel, when I'm gone.\n\nMourn me, revere me--or not, as you choose--  \nBut as the human person that I was.\n\n  \n\nAn angel is a pure celestial thing\n\nToo absolute and too ethereal\n\nFor earthly things like woe or weariness,\n\nFor home and hearth, for hunger, or for sex.\n\nAnd thou shalt not imply that all of these\n\nWere alien to me, to what I was.\n\nTo do so would set up a painted prop,\n\nA graven image, false and hypocrite.\n\nTo point to it, to call it by my name\n\nWould be to say, such purity was his\n\nThat if thou lack it, thou canst have no part\n\nOf what he was, nor can he have of you.\n\n  \n\nAn angel is a moral paragon.\n\nOf such unalloyed goodness that no man\n\nCould hope to be the like. I hope I have\n\nDone good, on earth, but I have lived on earth\n\nMost evil, and made choices on my way\n\nWith no foreknowledge where those paths might lead.\n\nAnd thou shalt not craft of my memory\n\nA movable goalpost, with which to say\n\nSuch innocence as his I cannot see\n\nIn these cold latter days, and none now live\n\nWho do deserve the mercy or the help\n\nThat he deserved and yet was not vouchsafed...\n\nAnd never mind who did vouchsafe him not.\n\n  \n\nAn angel is all incorruptible.\n\nAs timeless, as eternal even as\n\nThe stars themselves are not.\n\nIt has no past, no future, only an\n\nEternal patient present, without end.\n\nThat you read these words now proves I was not.\n\nThat my days were both limited and brief\n\nAnd shall not come again. The things I would\n\nHave done in them are largely left undone,\n\nAnd now they never shall be. Thou shalt not\n\nSuppose away responsibility\n\nBy saying, oh, in some brave afterword\n\nHe may yet have the happiness and joy\n\nThat his one chance to taste in this passed by.\n\nThose things that I will never, now, behold--\u0026nbsp;\n\nA welcome, Justice, Peace, the Northern Lights--\u0026nbsp;\n\nAre lost to me. And what now can I say,\n\nBut Father in Sunset, Forgive them not!\n\nFor they did know exactly what they did.\n\n  \n\nAn angel is a thing beyond the ken\n\nOf humankind. It needs, if needs it has,\n\nWe know not what and could not comprehend.\n\nAnd nothing of the things that we must have--\n\nAnd which it is injustice, of the kind\n\nThat crieth out for vengeance, to deny--\n\nDoes any angel need. I was not so.\n\nI needed much the same as any man.\n\nA home. A place beside the hearth. A bed.\n\nFood, shelter, all the hierarchy's known\n\nTo anyone who needs likewise as much.\n\nNo doubt the lack of one or more is why\n\nI am no longer with you, I would guess\n\nTis not the least mysterious. I lived.\n\nI loved. I had a right to live. And thou\n\nShalt not pretend that's hard to understand.\n\nAnd so then justify the next neglect,\n\nThe next rejection, the next needless death\n\nThat you will then call \"Angel\" to forget.\n\n  \n\nSo call me not an angel, when I'm gone.\n\nYou owe an angel nothing. I, at least,\n\nAm owed the truth of who and what I was.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"poetry","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1702497-maybe-stop-telling-this-man-what-he-wants.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1702502-i-think-about-revenge-most-every-day.json"}}