Poems: My Brother

My Brother

My brother tells me to stop being so melancholy

It is my natural temperament

I grin wide at the irony despite me not being very jolly

Sanguine is Rick’s natural bent

Especially truer now given his chemotherapy regimen

For Lymphoma wasn’t in the cards

But then who among us can predict what happens when?

And since when hasn’t life been hard?

The privilege of age is itself both surprise and prize

The world still full of sorrows

Life is thick with loss and joy, thousands of hello and goodbyes

Thus thankful for waking into tomorrow

Still he tells me, despite losing his hair, age is a blessing

Time may be short but love never is rationed

It is the gift of us older folks to keep the younger progressing 

Teaching how none dare not lose the passion