Beside The Beautiful Poem by David Kowalczyk

'My work is done. Why wait? '
-George Eastman



Twenty years ago, when I first read
these last words of George Eastman,
I was repulsed. What a tawdry, venal,
materialistic view of life!


Today, I must agree:
any life properly lived is
a life properly ended.


'My past three visits to Chinese
restaurants have yielded the
identical fortune:
'Good to begin well. Better
to end well.'


If ever was the time
for a graceful crossing,
it is now.


Thanksgiving but days away,
it is a perfectly delicious day.
A pristine turquoise sky.
A balmy seventy degrees.


This will be not a suicide,
but a celebration
of the soul's immortality.