I really like your views and the tone here. Somehow not somber, but peace. The fact that we all report some day.
Thanks for visiting again. The link I give is of a piece I wrote before my sister's passing.
thanks for these regifts.
i like getting the glimpse behind the poetry that this commentary offers. a 'writer friend' of mine suggested telling the story behind my poems. she seems to find this interesting...
We think alike in this regard SL. Both poems touch on different aspects yet I sense no fear but rather a profound understanding that this too is part of the cycle.
The last lines of A Night of Payment are brilliant containing a humility rarely found. This is one of my favorite pieces of yours.
I am glad I found your poetry. I love the imagery in Laughter. As for your comments about being morbid--don't you think that people who LIVE are also aware that it's a race in some ways?
i really like that you've posted these together - two entirely divergent sides of the same coin. i find the first one particularly wonderful - the idea of laughter as requiem - would that we live our lives so that we may afford such a conclusion!
I've some serious catching up to do as I see you've been quite prolific of late. Love these two pieces.
A friend of mine and I were discussing this very subject and he sent me some notes he took in college some 25 years ago during a lecture by poet Galway Kinnell. Quite appropriate, I think:
"It is perhaps true that a poem entails a struggle with one's own nature, that it comes partially out of our hunger to be changed - and so, out of a longing for what we are unable to be.
We can also perhaps feel the suicidal presence, feel it as an essential element in this hymn to earthly life. I doubt that, in serious poems, death and life can be separated at all.
It is obvious that poems craving heaven involve a certain death-wish. But in the great poems affirming life we may be even more clearly in the presence of some kind of will to die.
It is part of whatever may be glowing in our lives that we have been able to dream of paradise, that we have glimpsed eternity. It is as much a part of this glory that we are unable to enter paradise or live in eternity.
That we endure only for a time, that everyone and everything around us endures only for a time, that we know this, is the thrilling element in every creature, every relationship, every moment."
Keep dancing into the looking. 
Ardi, so sorry to hear of your loss. Your poem, "Winter Score" is so beautiful, the subtlety lending more force to the impact of the last line. Such poem speaks volumes about the moment, and the scene and the sentiment then. Thank you for sharing the link.
Kim, glad to know you don't mind reading these two again. You might have noticed that I've been revisiting old poems of mine (and writing sequels to some of them). It leads the way to the writer's secret labyrinth of memories of how each poem came to be (the stimulus, the eureka moment, the nearness or the detachment, the follow-through). A writer-self-analysis that helps to make me aware of changes (or sameness) in how and what I write about.
Janice, "a profound understanding that this too is part of the cycle"... Those are special words; they work like keys. 
Thank you for your generous appreciation of the last lines of the second poem.
Karen, why, of course; it has not even occurred to me to imply that "people who LIVE" are not so aware. I am no depressing character in real life, though the writer in me talks about mortality (I'd rather not use the term 'morbidity,' given its easy reference to the gloomy and the grisly) often. My reflections expressed in the 'notes' part of this blog post are centered on the writing process as regards poetry, specifically that stage wherein a theme, a topic, is yet to be picked, deliberately or not. And, as mentioned, mortality, out of all possible themes, is the one that recurs the most in my own works. As to the second sentence of my 'notes,' such statement is meant to refer to stereotyping of and among writers. I hope this reply serves as a sufficient clarification of points in relation to your question. Cheers.
Joaquin, hear, hear! To go (up, up, and away) with a thank you and a chuckle of contentment, and still with an ample sense of identity to do so (at that critical moment of letting go). Glad you've enjoyed the first poem.
Joseph, it's been a while. So good to see you here again, and with a treat as well. I'm grateful that you've shared Kinnell's thoughts on this matter, i.e. on the state of mind of those writing poetry. An engaging lecture, to be sure (how I wish I could have been there!). I like Kinnell's use of "perhaps," "partially," and "may be." His last sentence is a winner of a line (I applaud).
S.L., i love them both. A Night of Payment is brilliant, definitely one of my faves of yours!
It has been too long since I wandered the profound spaces in your mind, my old friend. I am delighted you have reposted these. I have enjoyed them enormously even though they count seriously that ticking noise that can be so annoying when you spend moments listening to it.
so very beautiful. i am truly sorry i don't find more time to come visit. been busy lately. but all for good.
blessings
dhyan
I like both these poems: the first is simply beautiful ('where the mind is but a string/of shivered echoes') and the second is very much of the times with clever use of words.
Mortality is a theme in many poems that are more than trivial, and one with which I am preoccupied, although I don't consider myself morbid either. My fear is memory loss, which my mother suffers from, and without which we are no longer the person we once were. The end of your first poem struck a chord with me.
Surely hope I didn't offend. Not what I meant at all.
I just spent some time with the first one. Thanks for this. To end with your own laughter, the comfortable familiarity of your own voice, would be a beautiful thing.
Aye mortality is THE theme of course.
"But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snowflake on the river,
Ae moment white, then gone forever"
(From Tam O Shanter by Robert Burns)
Enjoy reading your work as ever,
Hugh
SL, these are both really wonderful. I too hope to die with laughter, what a way to go! My favorite line there was the last one, thinking of laughter as a dancing voice. Lovely lovely lovely.
S.L.
i am glad you re-posted these 2 poems. what i am afraid of is gradually losing my memory, it is as good as death. that's why i wish i could write a poem like "Vestige". "the mind is but a string of shivered echoes" sticks to the mind.
i like the second poem too, and i chuckled at the "dear loanshark" bit, but to incur debts to those people is a hellish matter. and yes, the ending is awesome!
Russell, YOU'VE BEEN MISSED!!! How are you? Feeling loads better, I hope? I've been stalking your blog these past few months, waiting for you to post poems again. (big bear hug) Oh, pay no mind to that "ticking noise," dear friend, and stay put and stay in the peak of health. You have your teaching to keep you occupied; your students have much to learn from you.
Carole, I share your sentiments with regard to memory loss. I've been having trouble with mine at an early age, and it's been worsening (slowly, yet I fear that it might speed up once I hit the age range for early onset of Alzheimer's) with the passing of time. Memories of the little things and the really big things, in my case, tend to fade with an abruptness that can leave me fumbling my way through a fog of deja vu of some personal experience. (sigh) It is no wonder (to me, I've realized long ago) then that I get easily absorbed in discussions involving identity.
Odessa, many thanks!
Dhyan, thank you for visiting. I do appreciate it.
Karen, I bear you no ill will. None whatsoever.
Sandy, yes, it would be such a blessing.
Hugh, glad to hear you've enjoyed the read. Thank you for sharing that excerpt from Burns' well-loved epic poem.
Cat, the ring, the timbre of one's laughter does give away personality, like a signature. I hope to sign mine clearly when the (last) time comes.
Dsnake, "gradually losing my memory, it is as good as death"... Well said. So very true. (Please see my reply to Carole, as it relates to this matter.)
no richer than the coat i rent from you.
yes, true. death poems are necessary.
Enjoyed reading...
your line breaks are just wonderful.....
Keep writing.
I love this, it works for me on so many levels. As for writing about mortality, it's the eternal question isn't it, the drive towards death vs the drive towards life. We want to know what happens after. Thanks for the stimulating reading.)
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