Jack just had a big fight with his son Zach about it. He
said
I'm tired of hearing how you're too tired to do your
homework. You're
not too tired to play basketball or Xbox. That was that
after Zach said
Whatever.
Visiting the nursing home you think Never
will I allow myself to live long enough to end like that,
that's
a fact. But promises are broken all the time, to others
and the self,
and that one probably will be too unless your face is
shattered
into shards of broken glass, by accident.
Then it will be quiet, too quiet.
Day by day goes by until the day you receive news of
your disease,
personal, unique, irrevocable, musical and factual,
withal.
That's that you think but in fact it's not. You discover
(circle with a dot) dying's
much like living. That that's true until the body just stops
barking, breathing.
Whatever.
Salvation in the details (sub-atomic particles) . Granite
or sandstone, ash or oak, Odysseus or King Lear. Get
it? Not yet.
For someone who doesn't want to be anonymous,
Jack's anonymity runs deep.
His work sunk in a tar pit or peat. The worthwhile effort
is to meditate
on that, accept and repeat.
Like a flat spun nickel, shiny sunny side down,
shadowy silvery moon up.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem