Talk then about time, an ode, and rhyme, or not. Your writing in the meantime, now, is what we, your readers, want and need. So thanks, and good luck with all that!
This reflection on life’s inevitable harvest lands with the quiet weight of truth. The way you weave together personal reckoning and universal mortality feels like a whispered conversation with the divine. Your words don’t just describe the journey—they walk it with us, step by aching step. Profound and necessary.
Rhyming will keep you in good company with the dead ... And long after the Harvest, your poems will gestate all kinds of flowers and weeds. Alas, the Midnite Mine will keep your bones glowing wherever they rest. Maybe to nite-light future readings under the stars.
That's a beautiful way to express your feelings. I've donated my body to science and schools (when I'm through with it), so I can continue to be a help to people after I'm gone. Hopefully, they can learn something from an old, shriveled up, used up body that's seen a lot of good years and been blessed to see sights and do things so that i no longer have a bucket list of things I want to do. My bucket is empty and my soul is fulfilled.
I was carrying your poem in my heart yesterday as Mary’s cousin was being given the service by a catholic nun and his ashes were laid to rest in a box and site at a cemetery yesterday in Spokane Washington. His family and Mary’s relatives on the Sullivans side of family and jimmys friends from many years were there. Many roses and a pack of camels were buried with his box of roses.
From dust to dust.
My ashes will be in the timber by the river. Stories will be told. Some will be true and some will be fiction. And I hope there is much laughing and a celebration for life as I cross the great bridge into the motherland.
Sorry. I needed to write this here. Everyone has a story.
Love the hidden rhymes, little gems like dried cranberries in my scones. Love the list of patron saints and sinners. May your script surprise you with unexpected sideshows as your time nears, may your cells behave themselve9slk;- {this last bit from my dog, typing with her chin), may all of us seek to repair what we've done to each other and the Earth. Such a sayonara! Thanks!
Not only have you written a prelude to an elegy for life , until , you have sculpted your words as if they were clay molded into sentences. Visually, your poem is a work of art.
I am so grateful that I found your Substack and that it gives me access to your poetry and that I could read this funny and wise and wonderful poem. I also love how often your wife figures into your writings.
Talk then about time, an ode, and rhyme, or not. Your writing in the meantime, now, is what we, your readers, want and need. So thanks, and good luck with all that!
So many emotions
This reflection on life’s inevitable harvest lands with the quiet weight of truth. The way you weave together personal reckoning and universal mortality feels like a whispered conversation with the divine. Your words don’t just describe the journey—they walk it with us, step by aching step. Profound and necessary.
Rhyming will keep you in good company with the dead ... And long after the Harvest, your poems will gestate all kinds of flowers and weeds. Alas, the Midnite Mine will keep your bones glowing wherever they rest. Maybe to nite-light future readings under the stars.
I love this so much. Gorgeous work.
Openly weeping here.
That's a beautiful way to express your feelings. I've donated my body to science and schools (when I'm through with it), so I can continue to be a help to people after I'm gone. Hopefully, they can learn something from an old, shriveled up, used up body that's seen a lot of good years and been blessed to see sights and do things so that i no longer have a bucket list of things I want to do. My bucket is empty and my soul is fulfilled.
I love this. This is also a "guideline" poem...things I'll do and actions I'll take.
Such a relief to hear you hold so tight to life when so many have such a loose hold on it.
I was carrying your poem in my heart yesterday as Mary’s cousin was being given the service by a catholic nun and his ashes were laid to rest in a box and site at a cemetery yesterday in Spokane Washington. His family and Mary’s relatives on the Sullivans side of family and jimmys friends from many years were there. Many roses and a pack of camels were buried with his box of roses.
From dust to dust.
My ashes will be in the timber by the river. Stories will be told. Some will be true and some will be fiction. And I hope there is much laughing and a celebration for life as I cross the great bridge into the motherland.
Sorry. I needed to write this here. Everyone has a story.
Lovely words, cadence, delivery, voice, smile. A+…
Love the hidden rhymes, little gems like dried cranberries in my scones. Love the list of patron saints and sinners. May your script surprise you with unexpected sideshows as your time nears, may your cells behave themselve9slk;- {this last bit from my dog, typing with her chin), may all of us seek to repair what we've done to each other and the Earth. Such a sayonara! Thanks!
Not only have you written a prelude to an elegy for life , until , you have sculpted your words as if they were clay molded into sentences. Visually, your poem is a work of art.
Oh, this is good.
I am so grateful that I found your Substack and that it gives me access to your poetry and that I could read this funny and wise and wonderful poem. I also love how often your wife figures into your writings.
Me too. Wrapped in my blankie and laid in the earth.