"Paper Weight"

Condo recycle bin. (SOOC)

HEAVY is the challenge topic.

Trash collectors aren't the only ones who groan under the weight of paper.

Paper is weighing heavily on me, the kind that comes from trees and the virtual kind. So many books, so little time. So much to write - how will I ever get it all on paper? So much completed writing and art to sort through, organize, put into the world - how will I ever get it done?

The following poem is both an expression of this quandary and an example of it! It's from a series I call 'Iambic Quotidiana.'

PAPER WEIGHT

My father died at sixty-eight. Now I
am sixty-eight and pondering my end,
peering down toward that bend where the way stops,
and like the risen Jesus I’ll ascend.
. . . I’m not alone in eschatology.
My pastor nearly had a breakdown when
he neared the age at which his dad passed on,
quite young. The heart on which we all depend
will fibrillate, congest, murmur or pound
its final beat and then Bye-bye. Last breath.
The End.
. . . Old people meditate on death.
We know it’s coming, though we don’t know when.
I’d like another twenty years or ten
to draw and scribble in blank books before
it’s Lights out. Put down pen.
. . . But when I picture
my stacks of journals carted to the dump
unread — not even sorted through to save
a poem or two, a clever sketch, a quote
meant to be shared — I ruefully abandon
fond hope of posthumous celebrity.
. . . Don’t kvetch, I tell myself, God’s got your back.
Be brave. Consider. Even stars await
their grave.

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Apologies for the . . . 's.
The dots preserve indentation that Blip doesn't allow.

Apologies that no sooner did I get caught up on your blips, breathing a sigh of relief, than I've fallen behind again. I predict that with National Novel Writing Month coming up things won't improve anytime soon. I'll visit when I can - you visit when you can - and let's all cut each other and ourselves some slack now that we've discovered the Christmas rush has already begun!