Earthborn, Part I

ou’d think this was a poem of death, since my death begins it, oddly enough, though it all takes place in Heaven above, after I’d gone to my eternal rest, the weight of time and space now off my chest. Remembered the hospital, then nothing, until in a small town awakening, amidst a green country, and rolling hills, the air was sweet and fresh as my lungs filled, quite confused as to what was happening. The buildings were quaint, quite photogenic, as if out of some nostalgic past age, Like something seen on a storybook page, set amidst verdant fields bucolic, I suppose I should have felt some panic, but instead there was just a quiet peace, as if all my worries had been released. I looked down and saw my body was young, the wear of eighty-six years all undone, as if all of the laws of nature had ceased. As I got up, I saw people emerge, looking curious as they came my way, waited to hear what these figures might say, and would I even understand their words? Yet ever onwards these people did surge, until one of them did say, “Who might you be?” I just shrugged and said, “My name is Stanley. Honestly, I don’t know how I got here, but I think I must be dead, it appears… This whole thing just seems very strange to me.” Most of the people there just cocked their head, looked at each other, wrapped in confusion, like they didn’t know just where to begin, until a young woman asked, “What is ‘dead?’” At first I didn’t believe what she said, Then a man in the front gave a great gasp, cried, “Go find Philippe, and bring him hear fast! I think this man might just be an earth-born, I’ve never seen one appear here before! And only Philippe is up to the task!” I had no idea who this ‘Philippe’ was, or why they said ‘earth-born’ like it was strange, I could make no sense of this whole exchange, why they all seemed so shocked by what they saw, why they all looked at his with gaping jaws, but somebody ran off, back through the town, I moved to a bench where I could sit down, the people just stood there, looked quite awe-struck at little old me, a man of ill luck, not exactly the type who’d been renowned. CONTINUES IN PART II.