Disintegrating Renter

Everyone who isn’t shot
Or killed in an accident
Or a suicidal act

Eventually falls apart.
Timing matters. Diseases,
Stresses, and reckless living

Can speed disintegration.
The art of slowing prolonged
Decrepitude is practiced

And promised and sold
And researched around the globe.
There are acceptable years

For finally collapsing
And wisdom attributed
To simply not collapsing,

But everyone falls apart.
At the unstable meeting
Between animal and mind

A person realizes
Sometimes what it is to be
Self by negotiation

Between the many ideas
Of mind extending past lives
And life’s relentless living

Through each body for a while.
You rent, as it were, a home
High on the volcanic slopes

Pushed up and then eroded
By the vast tectonic plates.
Sometimes you feel the shudders.

It’s green and snow and crumbling.
You balance, watching lava
Flow and then disintegrate.