Two logs to make a fire burn,
one real, one fake,
for we have learned
that's all an evening fire takes.
I sit and contemplate my fate,
prepare to get a laugh from Yeats
but he has robbed my pen of words
and made the world seem more absurd.
With sharp intake of startled breath
that presses down upon my lungs
I read of an untimely death,
a tale of one who died too young.
Let this be said, let this be done--
that I should die before my sons.
Let me to my grave first be called
Let them grow older, grey or bald.
Yes, the final stanza expresses every parent's wish. There's a natural order to dying that we court.
Since you're being literary and mentioned Yeats, let me mention Thomas Kyd. In The Spanish Tragedy, Hieronimo has to grieve the death of his son, a terrible loss. When Shakespeare rewrites that play in Hamlet, he changes the order from an unnatural one in Kyd (son dies before a father does) to a natural one (father dies before a son does). To me, that's a fascinating change.
Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that I was moved by the sentiment in your poem, Con. Glad I read it.
Your last stanza is eloquent.
Thanks for the read--and the education. I've heard about Kyd but never read him. Just getting to Christopher Marlowe.
This was written as kids were flying in from college in a storm, and I read the Yeats poem.
"This was written as kids were flying in from college in a storm"
I have three grown kids and I understand exactly.