Poetry Thursday: Unfinished Conversations

The prompt at Poetry Thursday this week is Unfinished Conversations. Love it! But I haven't had time to work on anything original for it since I got back in town late Monday - too much of that pesky Real Life Stuff to take care of. But it's a theme I very much want to revisit at some point. Meanwhile, I'll share a poem I like a lot by Linda Pastan. It's one I think ties loosely into the theme of the week and I've been waiting for the perfect time to share it. Maybe that day is today. An Early Afterlife "...a wise man in time of peace, shall make the necessary preparations for war." ~~~Horace Why don't we say goodbye right now in the fallacy of perfect health before whatever is going to happen happens. We could perfect our parting, like those characters in On the Beach who said farewell in the shadow of the bomb as we sat watching, young and holding hands at the movies. We could use loving words we otherwise might not have time to say. We could hold each other for hours in a quintessential dress rehearsal. Then we would just continue for however many years were left. The ragged things that are coming next - arteries closing like rivers silting over, or rampant cells stampeding us to the exit - would be like postscripts to our lives and wouldn't matter. And we would bask in an early afterlife of ordinary days, impervious to the inclement weather already in our long-range forecast. Nothing could touch us. We'd never have to say goodbye again. ~~~Linda Pastan "Sky Glow" (clickable if you want to see it larger in a new window)