Poetry Friday--"Mind and Heart"

At the Library, we lost one of our co-workers to leukemia last week.

You start to think about things like how you'd like YOUR memorial service handled when the time comes. I came across a portion of "Mind and Heart" on a Pinterest quotes page, many months ago, and it somehow lodged itself in my head. I find it to be affirming.

Mind and Heart
by Charles Bukowski

unaccountably we are alone
forever alone
and it was meant to be
that way,
it was never meant
to be any other way–
and when the death struggle
begins
the last thing I wish to see
is
a ring of human faces
hovering over me–
better just my old friends,
the walls of my self,
let only them be there.

I have been alone but seldom
lonely.
I have satisfied my thirst
at the well
of my self
and that wine was good,
the best I ever had,
and tonight
sitting
staring into the dark
I now finally understand
the dark and the
light and everything
in between.

peace of mind and heart
arrives
when we accept what
is:
having been
born into this
strange life
we must accept
the wasted gamble of our
days
and take some satisfaction in
the pleasure of
leaving it all
behind.

cry not for me.

grieve not for me.

read
what I’ve written
then
forget it
all.

drink from the well
of your self
and begin
again.

I would like to have the part that begins "peace of mind and heart" read at whatever memorial service may take place after I go off to that big library in the sky. (Where else would a librarian and a writer go?) I also think "My Grave" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, would do.

And do you want to know what song I want played at my memorial service? This one:



Hurry down to Reflections on the Teche where I'm sure Margaret will be rounding up poems leaning more to the "bright side."