Death Comes Life Taking Not Long Before Dawn Poem by Terence George Craddock

I was close to drowning once, in trouble a few times in my teenage sport of swimming the Buller River in flood from pile to pile, the old woooden bridge; run down by cars on a motorcycle twice, once a car not stopping coming off a highway, head straight into the road, went to bed Friday night and woke up on the Tuesday afternoon the next week, months of nose bleeds,2 years of hearing speech memory problems; once hit from behind on a corner by a distracted driver, rehab spine stretched back out,2 years of stiff corset with rods, cars always win these encounters right or wrong; but I worked with a man who died twice of a heart attack and was revived with electric shocks, the third time he stayed dead; sometimes occassionally death gives second chances. But riding motorcycles was living, an incredible quality of life, among the best most worthwhile things I ever did and never hit when riding fast, only slow at in city speeds, proving the quick are not hit from behind. And if anyone wants to know how it feels to ride in mountains in the Southern Alps of New Zealand in the winter with snow on the highway, part of that is in the poem 'Homeward Bound' if you want to look it up.