Eyes
Stephen May

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A view into eternity…

When I was a boy, walking to theschool bus stop,
I passed the cold body of a dead chipmunk.
Its indecision on the road had cost it its life.
I remember pausing over the still corpse—
So unusual to see it so motionless.
I looked deeply into its tiny sightless eyes,
Forever focused on nothing, into eternity.

A few years later as a sullen teen,
I walked long distances to settle my mind.
On one such jaunt I passed another traffic casualty.
It had been a cat, but this cat was no stray.
Its dirty pink collar gave witness to an owner—
An owner who didn’t know, or worse, didn’t care.
Its mouth pulled back, baring its teeth in a fierce scowl,
As if to give challenge to the Reaper . . . or the Buick.
And its eyes—they too were open and vacant—
Forever staring down its final threat.

Not many years later, as a soldier,
While moving down a roadway outside Basara, in southern Iraq,
Among the fleet of burning vehicles, lying face up on the ground,
Was the cooling body of a young Iraqi soldier.
No traffic mishap had taken his life—but as the result of a colossal misjudgment.
I didn’t see the lethal wound, but I saw his face.
His eyes were open wide, but they couldn’t see me.
The windows to his soul were eternally open.
Taking in everything . . . and nothing.

When our final trumpet sounds, we each must face our fate.
Be it a Buick or a bullet, the result is the same.
Whatever you were will be gone, but your vessel will remain.
The lucky ones are tended to by those that cared.
But there is no soft music and flowers, no tears and no laments,
For those that fall outside of that celestial “luck.”
The best they can hope for is a shovel and the back of a truck.
A hastily dug hole, a thump, and a backfill.
And unless you closed them yourself upon death,
You, too, will pass with your eyes open.
For in death, there is no more delusion,
You will, once and for all time,
Be unable to close your eyes on the world.

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Stephen May is a resident of Columbiana, Ohio with his wife Caroline and two spoiled dachshunds. Between active duty and the Ohio National Guard, he has 13 years of service, all of it in tanks.