The Monday Poem:
SIX CHEERFUL COUPLETS ON DEATH
by Michael Blumenthal
Most things won’t happen, Larkin said,
But this one will: We will be dead.
The saddest thing, in each context,
Is knowing that we could be next.
Some take the bus, some take the train,
Some die in sleep, the rest in pain
But of one thing we can be sure:
All die imperfect, each impure
Some wishing that they had been better,
Others worse, but no one deader.
Shoes left, like Buddhists, at the door:
Those won’t be needed anymore.