Mr. B's Class - Day Five

     Today I am okay, or as I like to  say, at my age, every day day above ground is a good day. As of this writing, I have made it into my 71st year on earth. I have either been lucky, careful, or blessed (or a combination), but here I am until I am not.

     This whole life thing can be summed up as We aren't; we are; we aren't. As my father's passing taught me, enjoy the journey 'cuz the destination ain't so hot. Society tells us there is an average life span, but that's just an average. To over-simplify, for every person who lives to 100, someone has to die way younger to get the average (sort of - it's more complicated than that).

     Anyhow, the following poem (besides being great for literary devices) tries to make sense of the suddenness of one's passing in an accident suggesting that many ways of passing on have some sense to them.

AUTO WRECK

Karl Shapiro

Its quick soft silver bell beating, beating

And down the dark one ruby flare

Pulsing out red light like an artery,

The ambulance at top speed floating down

Past beacons and illuminated clocks

Wings in a heavy curve, dips down,

And brakes speed, entering the crowd.

The doors leap open, emptying light;

Stretchers are laid out, the mangled lifted

And stowed into the little hospital.

Then the bell, breaking the hush, tolls once,

And the ambulance with its terrible cargo

Rocking, slightly rocking, moves away,

As the doors, an afterthought, are closed.

We are deranged, walking among the cops

Who sweep glass and are large and composed.

One is still making notes under the light.

One with a bucket douches ponds of blood

Into the street and gutter.

One hangs lanterns on the wrecks that cling,

Empty husks of locusts, to iron poles.

Our throats were tight as tourniquets,

Our feet were bound with splints, but now,

Like convalescents intimate and gauche,

We speak through sickly smiles and warn

With the stubborn saw of common sense,

The grim joke and the banal resolution.

The traffic moves around with care,

But we remain, touching a wound

That opens to our richest horror.

Already old, the question, Who shall die?

Becomes unspoken, Who is innocent?

For death in war is done by hands;

Suicide has cause and stillbirth, logic;

And cancer, simple as a flower, blooms.

But this invites the occult mind,

Cancels our physics with a sneer,

And spatters all we knew of dénouement

Across the expedient and wicked stones.