23

Memento Mori:

fifty-one is getting close

to sixty-seven.

 

Just this week, two men have died at the age of 67.  One was a former district attorney in our community; the other was Walter Becker, co-founder and member of Steely Dan.  I don’t think I needed the reminder, but I got it anyway:  the difference between 51 and 67 isn’t all that great.  I am thankful for every day of life.

Stay tuned for a new haiku each day (or evening)…

Doctor Don

——————–

…a haiku series from my last month as a first-year quinquagenarian.

As with many things in life, this just happened.

I had this grand vision of taking a month-long road trip the year I turned 50 and writing a book about the experience, including thoughts and observations on my life (and life in general) so far.

Well, as John Lennon sang–but didn’t originate–in “Beautiful Boy,” life “is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”  So, no trip and no book (yet).

One night a few weeks ago, I woke up from a recliner nap and boom!  I got an idea.  No rhyme, no reason, it just came to me:  For my last month as a 50-year-old, I would write a haiku each night to capture the experience. 

As the Poetry Foundation reminds us, a haiku is “a Japanese verse form most often composed, in English versions, of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. A haiku often features an image, or a pair of images, meant to depict the essence of a specific moment in time” [my emphasis].

Each night for one month I will write and post a haiku.  By September 17, the end-result will be a 30-haiku series.  At that time, I’ll (hopefully) be starting a new year and chapter of what I call my “Age of Quinquagenarius.”