I wonder if God
    sees our numbered
breaths, how many
     have been & how
many are left,
millions of digits
    shifting above
our heads;
the old woman
 on the park bench
        with just 500 left. 
The jogger with 100
   between now &
        tonight when he
will exhale
     for a final time.
I should scale mountains,
         stare at the sun
  make my amount
  count, every last one.

There is a
thousandandone
year old man

you'd never guess
to see him

for that matter
you'd walk by him
and never notice

he is old
he is wise
he tries to change
no one
but himself
and then only
on alternate Tuesdays

the few who know
will once and again ask
"how do you do it" and
"of what do you dream"

he will say
he will always say
"i wake, i live my day
until i sleep
i sleep, i dream
to live another day".

a thousandandoneyears
a day at a time.
he is a happy man

Take a hit;
hurt a bit
and get over it.

I extend a hand,
a smile to Death, and bid him
comfort in my soul.

Since my father died
so young, always unreasoned
fear of dark, the end.

I have my father's
heart; it will fail me, just as
his stopped that winter.

He worked when he could
(not often at the end) to
keep family fed.

I have my father's
heart; I work for food, shelter
to its final beat.

I say in half-jest
I work to eat better cat
food in retirement.

The half-truth unsaid
is I work so my wife might
eat in retirement.

I pray I have my
father's heart; lived so bravely
and died so alone.

Light tread, heavy heart;
bears are the realm of spirit
in physical world.
The bridge they are carries weight;
a responsibility.

You
run your(selves)
foaming
over imperfect
jagged
boulders
water
healing, abrading,
breaking me
into round
handfuls of
careful heft,
scattered along
freshly carved
sandy bends
(where more
than a few are
said to have
struck gold),
waiting for
wanderers
to seek a stone
that fits
and skip it
onetwothreefourfivesixdang
across peaceful you
calming as we 
luxuriate,
spread out,
slow the flow
inevitable
inexorable
loss of us
both into
impassive
sea