May Twenty-Third 2011

FOR now I'll enjoy what I can.
A cigar, a musical serenade, friends, memories ... .
Right now it's enough.
I'm not fighting the end.
It will come in its own time.
I always thought I might
Wait it out and still be standing at the end.
That's not how it turned out
But this is good enough.
Why did I never think death
Would come for me?
And those men outside the window:
You don't think a one of them
Considers death might come for them, do you?
No, not the living. Even if we always
Expected it, the shock of it actually
Arriving is a total surprise.
- by the Author
@Life magazine photo by Thomas D. Mcavoy, April 1959.

Serenaded by Horston American Legion oldest Civil War Veteran Walter Williams lying in bed w. cigar.