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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
PROGRESSIVE HEALTH, by CARL DENNIS Poet's Biography First Line: We here at progressive health would like to thank you Subject(s): Organ Donors | |||
We here at Progressive Health would like to thank you For being one of the generous few who've promised To bequeath your vital organs to whoever needs them. Now we'd like to give you the opportunity To step out far in front of the other donors By acting a little sooner than you expected, Tomorrow, to be precise, the day you're scheduled To come in for your yearly physical. Six patients Are waiting this very minute in intensive care Who will likely die before another liver And spleen and pairs of lungs and kidneys Match theirs as closely as yours do. Twenty years, Maybe more, are left you, granted, but the gain Of these patients might total more than a century. To you, of course, one year of your life means more Than six of theirs, but to no one else, No one as concerned with the general welfare As you've claimed to be. As for your poems -- The few you may have it in you to finish -- Even if we don't judge them by those you've written, Even if we assume you finally stage a breakthrough, It's doubtful they'll raise one Lazarus from a grave Metaphoric or literal. But your body is guaranteed To work six wonders. As for the gaps you'll leave As an aging bachelor in the life of friends, They'll close far sooner than the open wounds Soon to be left in the hearts of husbands and wives, Parents and children, by the death of the six Who now are failing. Just imagine how grateful They'll all be when they hear of your grand gesture. Summer and winter they'll visit your grave, in shifts, For as long as they live, and stoop to tend it, And leave it adorned with flowers or holly wreaths, While your friends, who are just as forgetful As you are, just as liable to be distracted, Will do no more than a makeshift job of upkeep. If the people you'll see tomorrow pacing the halls Of our crowded facility don't move you enough, They'll make you at least uneasy. No happy future Is likely in store for a man like you whose conscience Will ask him to certify every hour from now on Six times as full as it was before, your work Six times as strenuous, your walks in the woods Six times as restorative as anyone else's. Why be a drudge, staggering to the end of your life Under this crushing burden when, with a single word, You could be a god, one of the few gods Who, when called on, really listens? Copyright 2001 by The Modern Poetry Association. This poem appears in the May 2001 issue of Poetry Magazine. http://poetrymagazine.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SUMMARY TREATMENT by JOHN PEPPER CLARK ON BEING ASKED TO SIGN AN ORGAN DONOR CARD by ALAN T. JEFFRIES |
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