Is it a sunspot, this dastardly blot,

a small, darkened mark of chagrin on my skin

which says I’ll debark from the journey I’ve known

since before I was grown and depart all alone?

Nature has shown once our skin and our bone

cease to hold us together against any weather,

in this great adventure where life’s a debenture,

our debts must be paid to the piper, parlayed

by the body that’s laid in condition now staid

’neath the sun overhead. So, has this brought the dread

of determinate cause of my life’s final clause?

Or, perchance, beauty mark, leaving time to debark

on the journey ahead which too often we dread,

for we don’t know the whys or the wherefores of skies

which we think we might enter to meet The Great Mentor

(or maybe the place which we hope we won’t grace

with a body disheveled like eggs which are deviled)?

But speaking of which, this reminder says switch

from the evilous ways done the bulk of my days

and become a good person whose fate will not worsen

when it’s time to board for life’s final accord.

There’s no need to answer—the Reaper’s a dancer

who’ll prance and romance till I’ve had my last chance

to complete what I started before I’ve departed

to realms not yet known where I’ll find what I’ve sown

has been growing, some grown, then departing alone,

will I find that my yield has become a vast field

which fed very many—or never fed any?

Whatever I’ve done it’s too late to undo

for I can’t return and tell you what to do

nor warn more than a few that it’s time to renew

before seeing your life in its final review.

By Ken Gosse

From: United States

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