Cards of life all dealt and played,
Still resilient we can be.
As everything slow starts to fade,
Hope seems the last to flee.

~~~~~

Becalmed, he lay in his hospice bed,
In end of life repose.
All hope of more days now full fled,
As to the sea his river flows.

I never knew the man he’d been,
Full health, enjoying life.
Career, his joys, far places seen,
His children or his wife.

To me he was a soon spent soul,
Due delivered to my care.
But a weary fragment of the whole,
With me now left to share.

As I watchful passed his bed that night,
I heard a feeble sound.
Concerned about his pending plight,
I paused a while my round.

I moved a chair to the side he lay,
And lowered my face to hear.
Just what it was he had to say,
As his final hours drew near.

"Sins" and "doubt" I thought I heard,
And leaned in that bit nearer.
Held his hands, as if each word,
Would perhaps be rendered clearer.

To my surprise it wasn't as thought,
No want of a last confession.
Nor was he with some guilt now wrought,
Troubled by his thought's procession.

Instead it was something more mundane,
Prosaic and down to earth.
As now I heard his utterance plain,
For all it's winsome worldly worth.

Rather than thoughts one might expect,
His concerns were not of sins.
Or a moment to on his life reflect,
But rather, putting out the bins.

More perturbed with things routine,
And whilst his will to live persisted.
Very much still in life he'd been,
A foregone future he resisted.

He'd retained a Sunday night concern,
Not of dread and work-week sorrow.
But for collection of refuse bins in turn,
And it was the grey one due tomorrow.

This made me question my own such slant,
When approaching quick my end.
Will I room such daily thoughts now grant,
Or will I all my garments rend?

I now hope to wind my weary way,
From this world calm, unperplexed.
The last words being that I'm heard to say,
‘Would you mind? It's the brown bin next’