Memento mori

All you know for certain is you’ll die

and so will all your friends;

you spend your busy life avoiding this,

the only thing you know.

You don’t know how – a slow death

years away, the heart attack tomorrow,

the wasting of disease, a sudden accident,

gunfire in the morning, or just old age.

It’s bound to take you by surprise.

You’ll enter that great loneliness alone –

no matter who stands round your bed

dispensing grapes and misplaced cheer.

You’ll forgive them for their lack of truth,

hear the frightened prayer behind the cliché:

‘Doctors can do amazing things these days …

‘Please find a cure for death before I die.’

 

©Virginia Rounding, 1994