Before dying catches us
and the banal, quotidian
joys of a simpe life expire
at the hoot of Charon’s ferry
from across the styx,
and the memory
of the faces, and the names
of the ones we once held dear
fade away, lost in the eternal
blackness of demise;
before the grim reaper
suprises us with the rude,
ineclutable finality of death;
we must not forget