It shouldn’t really surprise anyone that Rabbit wrote about death. But, here’s the poem for all to enjoy:
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.
Interesting take on death, especially since not too many people would know the name ‘John Updike’ if you walked up to them and said it on the street.
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