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Thursday, February 10, 2011

Birthday Present...and Future

So, this was the poem today--my birthday--on The Writer's Almanac. I don't know how old Ron is--maybe older than I am--but I know what he's talking about.

It's a good place to be.




The Death Deal


by Ron Padgett
Ever since that moment
when it first occurred
to me that I would die
(like everyone on earth!)
I struggled against 
this eventuality, but
never thought of
how I'd die, exactly,
until around thirty
I made a mental list:
hit by car, shot
in head by random ricochet,
crushed beneath boulder,
victim of gas explosion,
head banged hard
in fall from ladder,
vaporized in plane crash,
dwindling away with cancer,
and so on. I tried to think
of which I'd take
if given the choice,
and came up time
and again with He died
in his sleep.
Now that I'm officially old,
though deep inside not
old officially or otherwise,
I'm oddly almost cheered
by the thought 
that I might find out
in the not too distant future.
Now for lunch.
"The Death Deal" by Ron Padgett, from How Long. © Coffee House Press, 2011.

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