Raey Kubiak

I am still alive.
…while listening to Beethoven’s Pastoral.
When that countryside walk begins and suddenly the music wells up,
and I find myself tearing up with joy,
a knot of eudaimonia and humility rising in my throat,
I know it again, I am still alive.

No matter the layers of habit and repetition over me,
something inside remains untouched,
youthful, authentic,
slipping through the cracks to surface,
to shake my feelings, my thoughts, my very body,
and remind me,

Yes, I am still human.
I am not finished.
As long as I live, I will remain human.

No one cries by decision.