In 1981 actor Rutger Hauer playing a dying replicant in the classic movie Bladerunner, with Harrison Ford, delivered the famous "tears in the rain" death scene speech, which he had largely composed himself the night before filming. While my own death is still a bit off, I have been moved to compose my own "tears in the rain" reverie....
I’ve seen things …
the coffeehouses of MacDougal Street in the early 1960’s, a new culture being born
alone on the Tikal pyramid at midnight listening to the shades of captives, their hearts cut from their bodies on the steps below
with the people occupying the University buildings in 1968, saying no, saying war was hell, not a plaything for politicians; spent a night in jail, launching years of activism
drifted over the open fields of Wessex among the Stonehenge monoliths
seen the fog descend inside the teetering stones of Salisbury Cathedral
through the driving rain to the far-off bay where Columba first set foot on Iona … and Scotland
over Karpathian mountains to the ancient ruins of lost Vrykounta by the wine-dark Dodecanese Sea to lie and watch the all-night dancing by the cliff-side chapel
with my life partner wed below the ancient Parthenon stones in a chapel almost 2000 years old
encountered, labored with, the giants - Margaret Mead, Joseph Campbell, Merce Cunningham, Mario Cuomo, Edward Koch, Alvin Ailey, Agnes DeMille, Sigourney Weaver, Charles Weidman, Twyla Tharp, Geoffrey Holder, Arthur Mitchell, Alicia Lonzo, Ken Burns, hundreds of others
Saw airliners exploded into quarter mile high towers filled with thousands of people… the towers twisting, turning, collapsing, dying
Time to rest….