At Death Do We Part

My life is my pageant

Of tableaux, entr'actes, and dioramas

Passing in review, the floats--salient

Points displaying my melodramas.

My death's reach waxes unpleasant

With each year candles' waxed resistance;

My future keeps meeting my present,

Begrudged, my past knotted in irrelevance.

My future, once long and fertile,

Gives short notice, now, futility:

All I planned had rotted less versatile,

Belated, senescent debility.

My things, my victories, my rankings--

The stuff of debris, detritus, and flotsam,

Discarded as hand-me-downs, hanging

Others in ignorance, their games, zero-sum.

The wisdom of impending death

Now grades fully my parade;

Perspective--the happiness of last breath,

Air brakes my life; me? Unafraid.

What passes by me now is it--

Meaning divided by destiny--simpler,

A red carpet of rewarding respite:

We all go out pleased, with just a whimper.