Thursday, January 29, 2009

Great Poem: John Updike's "Requiem"

I'm not exactly sure this is a great poem, but it has its moments and is made all the more poignant because of Updike's recent death.

Requiem By John Updike
It came to me the other day:
Were I to die, no one would say,
“Oh, what a shame! So young, so full
Of promise — depths unplumbable!”

Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes
Will greet my overdue demise;
The wide response will be, I know,
“I thought he died a while ago.”

For life’s a shabby subterfuge,
And death is real, and dark, and huge.
The shock of it will register
Nowhere but where it will occur.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

John Updike's passing is sad news indeed... he possessed a truly beautiful mind; he didn't just write well, he wrote wisely