Traho Fatis

I was once an ordinary
Soul, embodied, and not a ghost,
And I suffered the whims of chance

Much as anyone. Then one night
I woke from a dream of small hours
To discover I had new work

Before me, stripped of my own life
And assigned to choose the moments
Fated for various others.

This is not a pleasant labor,
Not healthful for my awareness,
However beyond health I am.

I don’t know why I was chosen.
The task is ceremonial
And assigned at death, more or less

As lamas are found in Tibet,
With some crew floating out to choose.
I don’t know where the others went,

Or where or when I’ll go myself
So someone can choose after me.
Perhaps some moment I select

As the last for some animal
Human will result in their turn
To replace me in this business.

Fate, for now, is what I am, do,
And all the agency I have.
Fate is all I am. I glide past

Crowds each second without a twitch,
And then something tickles me, and
I point at some poor lump. That’s it.

I guess I should be glad for this.
It’s an occupation, past death,
Fate: it’s not quite nonexistence.

But there’s never been anyone
To discuss it with. I just drift,
Absorbed in picking who won’t live,

And musing, in my vacancy,
If there’d been something that I did
When I lived that pushed me to this.