artwork: charles altamount doyle
Eminently
Well Met
by
Gary C. Busha
(Honoring drawings of Charles Altamont Doyle,
father of Arthur Conan Doyle)
O
death,
one
day we shall meet–
perhaps
we’ll hook elbows in polka
or
grovel knee-deep in mire, feet to feet–
perhaps
we’ll shudder at our reflections
in
a pond, or share some space
under
a plum tree as the fruit falls
and
rots and disappears.
O
death,
shall
I have time to straighten my tie
(before
I die) or on a moment’s notice,
be
yanked from life, too late to settle my estate?
Will
it be cancer, a sudden spasm at night,
or
the likely accident on the road
while
trying to avoid the rotting skunk,
and
by doing so swerve into a semi carrying 60 tons
of
frozen beef to supermarket, the driver drunk?
Is
there time to reflect the fast forward of one’s life?
Here
I was a slobbering newborn,
there
acne-faced in high school, then on the road,
driving
somewhere, getting the cob without the corn.
Was
I one who reached old age, sitting in a rocker,
staring
at a blurry page? Did I ever have one single,
original
thought? Or, was I computed and managed
by
what I bought?
When
we meet, O death,
how
shall we greet? Shall I doff my hat? Must I bow
at
your feet? Or, can we simply meet–
and
meeting be eminently well met, hand to hand,
glove
to glove, boney fingers laced, yin and yang?
~
previously published in Poems from
Farmers Valley
(Prell Publishing)
