If I should die tomorrow
Some half a dozen friends
Would shake their heads and say, “Too bad.
“Well, that’s the way it ends.”

They’d shake their heads and mumble,
“At least the man was old,
He’d lived his life, had child and wife—”
These friends with hearts of gold.

And none of them would understand
My life had just begun
And all the things I dreamed about
Still waiting to be done.

The lands I should have traveled to,
The mountains to be climbed,
The houses that I should have built,
The verses to be rhymed.

The victories I should have won
For peace and for mankind

Have never even been begun,
And now it’s all behind.

^^^

This poem is by Julian M. Drachman, who died in 1983. His poetry appeared in numerous prestigious magazines and journals during his lifetime.

Image by Kalyee Srithnam.