Poem of Life

“Daddy, why do people die?” My daughter had tears in her eyes. This was an important issue to her.

“Anyone in particular?” I replied, “Or just people in general?”

“Everybody, but mostly me.” She choked out. "I know everybody dies, but I never thought about dieing myself until just now. Why?”

I gave her a hug and a melancholy smile. She did her best to smile back, tears welling in her eyes.

“Is it ok if I talk about something else first, then lead into dieing?” I asked. Acting so serious and melancholy that it was comically overacted.

“OK,” She giggled.

“Do you know what I’m doing?”

“You’re writing a poem.”

“Yes, specifically, I’m editing a poem. It means the poem is finished front to back, but I’m still tinkering with the insides. Let’s call this poem, ‘The Poem of Life.’ Take a good look at what I have here on the table.” I let her see everything. “What do you see?”

“A poem.”

“Floating in midair? Wow. That’s magic!”

“No. On paper.”

“Don’t you mean papers?”

“Yeah. You’ve got the old one with all the scribbles and you’re copying that on the new one.”

“Right.” I acted like I was a game show host and she had just won! “Those scribbles are editing notes. Tells me what to do when I copy the poem on to the new sheet. Now when I read the poem, instead of reading the editor’s notes to get through it, I only have to read the poem in the normal lines. Look in the wastebasket and tell me what you see.”

She reaches into the wastebasket and pulls out a crumpled piece of paper. She opens and reads it.

“It is an earlier version of your poem.” She said.

“How does it look?”

“All scribbly and then there’s lots of little writing all over the place.”

“Yeah. It’s hard to read the poem anymore. So, crumple it up and throw it away.” She did so enthusiastically. “Is the poem gone?”

“No. It’s right there in your hands.”

So, the paper is not the important thing, the poem is, right?”

“Right.”

That’s why people die. We are like the pieces of paper. We carry the 'Poem of Life' around and edit it as we go. I am like this scribbled one here with all the margin notes and you are like this new cleaned up one here. In the wastebasket are all of our ancestors. They carried the ‘Poem of Life’ to us. Someday you will help someone new copy the 'Poem of Life.”

“But why do the old ones have to die?”

“We already determined the poem was the important thing?” She nods. “Well, the sheet of paper in the wastebasket was covered with so many notes that it didn’t look anything like the poem anymore. Once it got to a point where it couldn’t be modified to be the poem, it was time to throw it away.” I laughed. “Us old fogies try to keep the poem from changing once we get to old to edit anymore and our margins are all filled up. It would just end up a big fight to change the ‘Poem of Life’ anymore. So, to prevent that, the old fogies die and get out of the way so the ‘Poem of Life’ can get even better. Like this.” I crumple up the sheet I had been copying from and say a prayer for it, sounding as over dramatic as possible, then I pitch it into the wastebasket. “Do you understand why people die now?”

“Yes.” She smiled and nodded.

“But, that doesn’t diminish the importance of  any of the pieces of paper that got the ‘Poem of Life’ to the wonderful stage it is in today! Every one of the pieces of paper used was extremely important to the poem. At one time, each was the most important one. Just like you are right now!”

I bop her on the head with my pad of papers. “See all the blank papers in here? They are babies. I’m going to pull them out and write on them. Then when they become teenagers, I will start editing. Some sentences will get scratched out and others added. Once it reaches old age, where there are so many scratches and margin notes that it is full, I’ll get another baby and transfer the poem again. The 'Poem of Life', the important thing, will keep improving and living on. The pages will have a shorter but very valuable life.”

“I’ll miss you when you are in the wastebasket.” She laughed.

“Oh, yeah? But, look at all the babies you will have to keep you company.” I flip the pages of my notebook at her and chase her around the room. Finally, she sits down, I sit down and we both know the conversation is over.