Hang A Lantern on The Carpenter's Mistake

These are things the dead can teach us: every opportunity to be generous is itself a generous gift; no property or thing has more value than a friend; we all know how this will end & along the way sorrow will have its say. . . .so stay a little longer in the chair for the purr from the cat on your chest, it’s not yet time to rise; don’t sweat the cat hair stuck on your favorite fleece; don’t sweat the cat hair on the coat of the person next to you in line; let go of 10-pound anger, 50-pound grudges, pinches of envy, and bitter types of all dimensions; hang a lantern on the carpenter’s mistake; say hello to all you pass while out for a soggy walk...or a sunny one; get that coat with all the buttons; wear that hat; go for the new haircut and put your fate in the hands of a barber you don’t know; forget it, let it grow; regret is a beast that doesn’t want out, let it have the house, leave no forwarding address; buy all your own books and give each one away; buy all your friends’ books and hear their voices in every line; art is no chapter in your life, it’s your autobiography with a spine; go play on a parallel cloud, give a wave; toss the seagulls a crust, give a shrug to the bread police; uncertainty is temporary, to be beloved is not; to be remembered in a poem is eternity; similes for death are like tomatoes hanging on a winter vine; as the end draws near make a smile be the last thing you see on planet earth; make a smile be the legacy you share; these are the things the dead can teach us, these are the poems they leave behind, with love.

By Guy Biederman

MacQueen’s Quinterly: Knock-your-socks-off Art and Literature, Issue 11:January 2022 Prose Poem