Requiem by John Updike who Died Tuesday

[deansandannie]

It came to me the other day:

Were I to die, no one would say,

'Oh, what a shame! So young, so full

Of promise - depths unplumbable!

Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes

Will greet my overdue demise;

The wide response will be, I know,

'I thought he died a while ago.'

For life's a shabby subterfuge,

And death is real, and dark, and huge.

The shock of it will register

Nowhere but where it will occur.