So he’s dead.

A life well lived,

Lived well.

So they said.

Died yesterday.

Born eighty years ago,

Died in a coma –

104 days from diagnosis.

A man we thought would

Live forever.

Twenty-three years my senior,

Who admonished me

For not exercising enough

Even in winter.

Getting fat! He said.

I said to my wife,

Is he crazy?

Still –

Feeling nearly dead

Jogging with the man.

She said –

How can you let a 90-year-old

Put you to shame?

At work –

Leading the way,

A hard-charging man

Pushing me whenever he said!

A man’s man,

Forced out way too young!

So we said.

Ran till he was a hundred.

That’s winter for you!

A life well lived,

Lived well.

So she said.

He should have lived forever.

What was she thinking?

We all thought she would go

Long before him,

She did too.

She never ran.

Almost divorced him instead –

After he spent six months away

And came home

Nearly dead.

A man’s man.

So we said.

There is a price for being his kid,

For not being him.

She too could have been

A life well lived.

She fell apart instead,

So they said.

He tried to pick her up, they said.

Wanted her beside him,

Even in winter,

They said.

But no one could stay with him,

We all said.

In the end,

A man’s man,

At only a hundred-and-ten.

Like blue oxen,

We all ran

After him.

****

Categories: Poetry, Selection: 2010 - 2015