Letter to a Middle-Aged Poet 

Nature and history have made us 
what we are, fat hapless amateurs 
stranded some ninety million miles 
from the nearest star, 
and if I can be candid,
as I always try to be 
with those I love,
we will be the subjects of 
neither biopics, nor documentaries, 
nor panel presentations, nor think-pieces, 
nor op-eds, nor elegies 
after we’ve finally joined 
the generations 
and done what all poets do, 
namely to find 
oblivion mostly kind, 
at least compared with being 
as we knew it, which 
to be fair to being,
we hardly knew 
and never learned to do it 
well enough to start seeing 
the truth behind 
all those axioms, old friend, 
about what counts in the end.

—Matthew Buckley Smith