To My Friend On His Deathbed, Or, Maybe You Won't Go

 

                                                                      

To My Friend On His Deathbed

Or, Maybe You Won’t Go?

There is nothing I can do that will be any good

Nothing I can try that could save you

No herbal concoction, no medicine food

Everything stronger they already gave you

Is there time left anon a new habit to learn?

Maybe, but not its proper effect ascertain

Our time finds, invested, a decreasing return

All costs presently sunk, with no successes to claim

Yet so much of our time is, well, mundane

with the details of our little lives quite consumed

 but — an imperative added to not be all in vain

that no one here can fulfill, since we are all of us doomed.

this verse was meant to somehow banish our grief & fear & sad regret:;

if as i suspect this goal remains elusive, perhaps we’ll get there yet.