What Of The Person Remains? Poem by Shalom Freedman

WHAT OF THE PERSON REMAINS?


What of the person remains?

For tens of thousands of years
Not even a bone.

For a few thousand
For a few a name and a story,
And for most, dust and nothingness.

But then
Portrait and family history
Photographs and then films
Clips of a life.

And now more and more detail
Everyman immortalized in each tweet and twitter
Eternity in an electronic file.

And yet with all this
With all the remnants and reminiscences
With all the recorded interviews
With all the tons and tons of information
Gathered around each name
What of the person remains?

All these images and information
All this non-erasable digital paradise
Has not made one single human being
Breathe again with the full breath of life.

The person does not remain
No matter how many memories and how much information
Is left behind.

Death is not defeated yet
As we record and record and record
Every passing instant and action
Of what one day in an instant
May all suddenly disappear.

We will forever be unable to do-
What only God
May do for us.