Life is what happens to you
while you’re busy making other plans.
—John Lennon
Somewhere near the end of August,
or in September, one leaf falls, to show
that autumn’s soon to come and winter’s
waiting in the wings.
We went to high school
as honor students, it’s hard to believe;
sat through the same classes, same tests,
and same homework, then graduated
and that was that.
And now he’s gone, at 56, from cancer says
the obit. John is gone; just like that,
and we’re still standing, spread out across
the country, living lives, some full, some not,
but living none-the-less, and John is not.
And that is that.
This article appears in November 2014.
