When You Have Only Twenty Days To Live.... Poem by RIC BASTASA

the numbers become
bold and
black,
each number
at first counts
a lot,
they diminish
until
you reach zero
but by the time
you reach
that number
before
zero when you
count in reverse,
you have already
grasped the
full meaning
of each day, and
when light shuts you
out,
you tell yourself
it does not
matter, and you
recall,
what do i really have
here?

a body, a pair of
hands,
a face, a set of
teeth,
food, sex, love,
relationship,
filial pity,
properties, house
cups and saucers,

if they do not break
they rot, or they
degrade you, or
they break away with
you and you have spent
so much time
repairing, forgetting
and excluding,
popping out and
shrinking it,
weakened by all these,

zero becomes so
beautiful
it takes you off
from so much hassle
from so
much misery

upon summing out
everything, everybody.