FOR EVA
MIODOVNIK OPPENHEIM (1931-2014)
—Not just any death
As I
have lost the previous generation, one after another,
I cried,
“I do not want to be one of the elephants
left in
charge of memory and the family stories,
who
receives all the confidences.” And now I am
one of
the few left of my own generation.
All
around us the feeling of life slipping away.
So much
loss suffered. Wanting to hold onto
every
minute, to stop complaining, reassure
all
those we love. It can all disappear
in the
blink of an eye.
I stroke
the dog, she wags her tail. The cat
lashes
hers. I too would love to experience
the
innocence our pets have
rather
than this death-
obsessed
human mind.
I think
I had that innocence and sense
of
certainty long ago, when people
still
kept being born
into my
life, instead
of
leaving it.
- Ted Bookey 2016
Ted
Bookey’s Collected Poems With
a W/hole in One, 1970-2010 was
published in 2010 by Moon Pie Press. Originally from New York City, he now
lives in Maine, where he teaches both poetry and humor in the Senior College
program at the University of Maine at Augusta. He is the author of four
books of poems, translations with his wife Ruth of the poems of Erich Kastner,
and several plays that have been produced in Maine and off-off Broadway.
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