Rekindling

I am a rekindler, a plagiarist it seems
of other's thoughts taken as my own
Today, just today in the car, an illustration
Something was said of dreamlike quality
I forget the example, perhaps an angle
of the sun or both thinking the same thought
and I mused that perhaps death was merely
waking from the dream

I drove a while and came back to it
I really like the ambiguity of that thought
said I may want to work on it a bit
find a place to give it length and breadth
Been done said she, already commented upon
and I was stunned, really are you sure
Been done and I pondered, is original thought
as rapturous if it's been done

For surely there is rapture here for me
in this imagining of death
as waking from the dream of life
But I'm a reader and it's been theorized
that every percieved sense is cast in memory
My god, it's made of me an architect
of other men's labored drawings
a rekindler, blowing breath on old coals

Is nothing new, can an egg be unscrambled
am I leafing idly through other men's pages
Reversing Vonnegut, lifting a phrase of Doctorow
to slide it between the slices of my sandwich
I reject that, for who would paint having seen Picasso
or sculpt in the same world as the Pieta
It's a damned good thought this view of death
and I may work on it yet, but still . . .