I have lived 79 years
and if I didn’t wake up tomorrow
no one would say I died young.
What do you push anyway? I guess
you push time out the way
that you would just as soon
hang onto. Victor Emanuel
wrote a memoir entitled One More Warbler.

That meant he wanted to keep living
to keep birding.
Now he’s in his eighties and still
finding warblers, and many other birds.
So far, so good, unless I hear
he died in his sleep yesterday.

I hear that a lot now — my wife
never skips obits, and often finds
colleagues if not friends have “passed.”
Some were our age, some were even
younger. We are surrounded by death,
like a wagon train circled to fend
off the catalyst tribe that, in turn,
are closing in on my DNA
and want to burn it with oxygen.

I would run from death
but I can’t run. I would work a bucket list
Of exotic places to travel, but I have
trouble with stairs. I am good
for about two or three hours
in the field, but then it’s nap time,
or maybe I’ll drop in on my buds
at Dairy Queen.

Still Light.
Not too late. Did I tell you
I am in the woods? Oh, there’s
A young Redstart. One more warbler!
Sounds like a plan for me.