Learning from Death (poem) by Lloyd Lofthouse on AuthorsDen

Learning from Death
by Lloyd Lofthouse → (All Poetry by Lloyd Lofthouse)
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What have you learned from Death?
Death has been walking in my shadow Since birth When a virus Waged war with my heart Stealing my weight My youth Often leaving me struggling for breath The scarecrow teen without a girl friend The first lesson from Death Came when my grandmother died After losing a leg to Diabetes One of Death's soldiers Such as Heart Disease and Cancer Shattering the clay pot where my tears hid In Vietnam, My unit earned a presidential citation Thanks to Death Taking fifty percent causalities Arriving one round at a time Hidden in buried explosives On the dark wings of rockets and Agent Orange From a government that lies For profit demanding obedience Death followed me home from Southeast Asia Taking my mother at 89 My father at 79 My brother at 64 A loving aunt in her 70s The Uncle called Lloyd at 93, who defeated Death in Burma After crossing the mountains From India in World War II In 2011, an eighty-year old father-in-law Spread his wife's ashes in the East China Sea One by one Spread across decades These people that I knew That I loved That I liked and admired Followed Death to its home Death visited again recently Taking a neighbor too early A good man deserving more years With his loving family missing him and friends that enjoyed his company Cheated While a more deserving candidate Closer to the end of the street Survived to drive his shiny dark cars Worn as emblems of ruthless corporate success I have learned that Death always wins and suffering is for the living

Reviewed by lois christensen

Reviewed on October 16, 2014

Death surely disrupts our lives quite often and the older we get the more deaths occur in our lives. But life goes on and on til we're dead, indeed.

Reviewed by Gene Williamson

Reviewed on July 31, 2011

Good to see you posting again, Lloyd--even with this sad
but excelled poem that reminds us that death in an unwelcome
teacher. -gene.

Reviewed by Terry Rizzuti

Good poem, Lloyd. Sometimes we win a battle here and there, but never the war.

Reviewed by Regis Auffray

Sobering thoughts indeed, Lloyd. Thank you. Love and peace to you,

Regis