RESPICE FINEM

     The end of life?  That’s somewhere up ahead—
     Why think of it until it closes in?
     Life’s for the living; death is for the dead:
     Each day’s a new beginning, so begin.

     That’s cheery, positive and partly true,
     And I accept we need to live life fully,
     Not morbidly fixate then fret and stew,
     Which drains the heart and makes the brain grow 
          wooly.

     Well, let’s agree to seek a compromise:
     Acknowledge death may come at any time
     And therefore study always to be wise:
     Eschew the trivial; find the sublime.

          But life’s a mingled yarn we cannot comb,
          Nor will it be unraveled in this poem.

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