Am I Dying? [written 2014]
Well, certainly sometime…
but I mean, am I dying soon?
like before my next birthday…
or even before I get to make love again…
(and these days, at my advanced age,
that might well be AFTER my next b- day),
and is that a good sign, or a bad sign?
Energy is low, even after I stopped my statins,
(which one of my five M.D.s says increases
an elderly male’s risk of a heart attack)
–btw, having 5 Docs is certainly a sign
of one’s impending demise.
All of my doctors are younger than I am.
Two of my doctors are younger
than my youngest child.
The ages given of the newly dead
in my local paper’s obits are half
older, half younger than I am, usually.
I am writing more verses than ever,
but fewer sonnets–am I preferring
free verse because it is faster?
Am I desperate to say what I have to say
before I can no longer think or speak?
There are times now I can no longer
see the grid of streets (as if from above)
in my home town. I make more wrong turns.
My dreams are more memorable than
many conversations. Nightmares
are more frequent–nightSTALLIONS
chase me till the dawn.
If death is like sleep, will I ever
really rest in peace?
- Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, April 15, 2016
Views from the Edge 
Reading this for the first time now, after more than a year, it is so very poignant. Now he is at peace, no more nightmares. And i have faith, the evidence of things not seen, that he is with God.
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Hi there, CA. I, too, have faith that he is with God. No idea what “with” means, but that he is with God I have no doubt. That’s for “the evidence of things not seen,” one of my favorite texts.
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