2008 September 13 poem: HUNDREDS

HUNDREDS

- thousands, maybe,
in the ten years I've worked here, says
the LVN to a visitor looking for a way to keep her
patient friend here alive forever. We're
all going to die, he says; most of these
patients are just going to die sooner than
we are who work here or who
come to visit them. She is not
satisfied; her desire is that nobody
die, certainly nobody that
she knows. And I've been
feeling so lucky since watching the news of
impending "certain death" for those in the path of
the latest huge storm in the Gulf of Mexico. Lucky because
they
are going to die and I'm not, but hah! We're all
doing it - not just falling in love but
dying too. That's the way of this
beautiful round world. I say, Thanks
for the ride.