I'm dying
but death I deny-
I'm still living

though hope is not in the offing
yet  with every dawn
there's sweet unfolding meaning

as I've loved living
there's not a stint of sadness
in my soon-to-be departing

I've been listening
to Schubert's Das Tod Und Das Madchen#
death is a friend--a thought so comforting

my poetry is my life entire- -singing
to me is each line drawn from
my body-system which is failing

you my friends who brought me poetry books for reading
late into the night I kept awake
I'd been through Keats, Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth and Browning

yet more,  the other poets remaining--
the true poet never gives in to weeping
his poems triumph over everything

you, my dear friends, now I'm biding
you good cheer, do promise you would go away smiling
knowing I've loved every moment of living.