The Death Deal

[y66]

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.

 

from How Long. © Coffee House Press, 2011. Reprinted with permission at The Writer's Almanac.

[y66]

I always thought it would be in a motorcycle accident. So I stopped riding.

[Rain]

I've been thinking about death these 2 weeks. I keep remembering my 3 dogs and 2 cats who've died - had to put blackie to sleep, which resulted in overwhelming guilt. (How on earth does one get sick and decline so quickly?) And then I look for blogs to read.

 

Hope this doesn't mean anything bad, but I certainly don't feel prepared and ready. Anyway, this is such a depressing topic. (Though the poem is nice).

:(

[Hanoi5]

Death is just a part of life. It's probably one of the things which you better think about with faith rather than science.