We rise — not like rising but like sinking turned backward. You step, unknowing — not unknowing but not caring that the not-living, but not-dying, beneath your feet are a warning. We are resting, not sleeping — just settling under the ground on which you are sauntering — not striding, more like drifting over. You are wandering, on land — not dirt, but earth — that is cradling, not consuming, but holding us as we are watching, not dreaming, only admiring your breathing.

We are screaming without scaring, only reminding you that your living — not dying — is slowly fleeting. You are forgetting and not believing that one day you’ll be falling — not floating — into the land where we lay decaying. Your understanding that you will be joining, not visiting, us in a year, or ten, or twenty, or tomorrow, is pressing.

We are wishing — no, we are praying — that you take part in the living we cannot be doing. Go do the dancing, not lazing; the conversing, not avoiding; the travelling, not staying; the trying, and not wasting. Go do the living that is not long-lasting — the living that we are deeply missing — the living that you are wanting, not needing, but yearning for. Because your stepping, needs to know — without forgetting — what we lay here declaring, revealing without surfacing, that mere minutes must have meaning, or our speaking — not speaking — on stones stuck sticking means nothing — not nothing — but something so that we may go on sleeping — not sleeping.