Is life the incurable disease?
The infant is born howling
& we laugh,
the dead man smiles
& we cry,
resisting the passage,
always resisting the passage,
that turns life into eternity.
Blake sang alleluias
on his deathbed.
My own grandmother,
hardly a poet at all,
smiled
as we'd never seen her smile before.
Perhaps the dress of flesh
is no more than a familiar garment
that grows looser as one diets
on death, & perhaps we discard it
or give it to the poor in spirit,
who have not learned yet
what blessing it is
to go naked?
Erica Jong
Picture: All Rights Reserved ® aml.2009
