Hell, the universe expands until it dies. Why not me?

LAST EFFORTS BY JOE MASI 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 67

While walking Baily and Charlie 

I ponder poems about growing old.

Each tosses out a morphing message. 

Most I catch, chew, challenge, chuck:

From broken, bruised, beat-up bodies

to heaven’s healing fountains of youth.

From a forever-spirited, daring dude

to an abrupt step into grizzled darkness.

From a sunny rearview mirror glance  

to entry into an endless black tunnel. 

From Charge of the Light Brigade

to ossifying, ancient, wobbly legs.

From fighting ’til the final bell 

to time to toss in the towel.

From the best man for any woman 

to destined to die undiscovered.

Ahh, but by stark contrast one poem 

shouts out powerful, positive advice:

it’s Wendell Berry’s plea to plant trees,

mighty trees that shade our afterlives. 

He urges me to create something, 

anything that lives on after I die.

That poem I adopt as a 

foundation for my own.

Unless I carry on well past one hundred

young Charley, puppy Bailey will outlive me.

The Subaru is my final new car purchase.

My ethics course is my last novel creation.

My wife lives on without my helping hand,

but at least I am not denied her hand to me.

All that said, I’m a gray-haired goat

who’s got to have something to butt.

Something worth butting.

Something that causes me to

die in motion, fueled by 

the last drop in my tank.

Hell, the universe expands 

until it dies. Why not me?

JOE MASI

I wrote Last Efforts in a workshop led by the poet Art Elsner. We were handed a packet of poems to read. There were some poems with which I related, others not. For instance, there was one where a guy was talking about being high-spirited and young—and I don’t know why Dorian Gray came to mind, but he did. I thought, “So what about if you’re tired and wrinkled?” But the Wendell Berry poem had a forward look to it, and that’s what inspired my poem.