After Life, Over Lunch

Darby Riley

April 18, 2022

My friend asks: What do you think 

happens after you die? Will you meet

your dear friends and relatives? 

I say, we know you become 

rich compost. (Avoid formal – 

dehyde and metal caskets). 

And your genes survive in your 

descendants, and your spirit 

lives on in those who loved you: 

your wisdom, your attitudes 

your jokes, your approach to life 

the way you eat, work, talk, think. 

That doesn’t help me any, 

says my friend. Facing the end, 

I want bliss to be beyond. 

You’re too bound to your person, 

I say. Maybe heaven is 

you merging with a cosmic 

consciousness. We know we’re 

the universe reflecting  

on itself. There’s a divine  

aspect to this long journey. 

It’s mystery, miracles, 

infused with sacred meaning, 

as each being emerges 

in all its precise beauty 

from what seems to be nothing. 

My friend, age 78, 

sighs and shakes his head. I can’t 

buy the mystical, he says.

Darby Riley, a native San Antonian, has been married to Chris Riley since 1971 and they have three grown children and a granddaughter, age 6. He has hosted a monthly poetry writing workshop for over 25 years. He practices law with his son Charles and is active in the local Sierra Club.