The Leap by Nolo Segundo

I was half-mad with despair,
Hopeless in love and life,
At the end of my rope--
so I chose to drown,
To cease all pain in
Sweet oblivion, to be
No more, to be gone….
And when I flung my
Young and strong body
Into that swollen river,
I thought that’s what
Awaited me—nothing!
But oh I was so wrong,
For my agnostic mind
Could not foresee the
Awaiting vast blackness,
The pain beyond pain,
And the utter aloneness—
No other souls, none
But my bodiless mind
That had spurned God
And love as well, and
Now roiled in torment,
Until I called out to Him
And was released
From hell to return
To the world I had
So recently spurned.
Some will discount
This as the ravings
Of a young man
Breaking apart—
It’s only fear, just
Imagined terrors,
Be brave they say,

Neither heaven nor
Hell awaits us, our
Only fate, extinction.

I might wish them
To be right, but
They are deluded—
As I once was, for
Now I know there
Is no way out, no
Escape from oneself,
From one’s mind,
From one’s soul….

About the Poet:

Nolo Segundo, pen name of retired teacher L.j.Carber, 76, became a published poet in his 8th decade in over 180 literary journals in 13 countries. The trade publisher Cyberwit.net has released 3 collections in paperback: The Enormity of Existence [2020]; Of Ether and Earth [2021]; and Soul Songs [2022]. These titles reflect the awareness he gained 52 years ago when he has an NDE whilst almost drowning in a Vermont river: That he has–IS–a consciousness that predates birth and survives death, what poets since Plato have called the soul. [And no, the NDE was not of the ‘white light’ sort, but then his near drowning was not accidental; still, he is grateful for all of it, for it was the day he began to awaken–and is still doing so.]