One Foot in the Grave

We all die-but we all die differently. It's not death's certainty, but it's unpredictability, that troubles us-the when, where, and how of death, rather than the fact. Whether our deaths come by accident, illness, old-age, or other people, it's always too late to turn back-hopefully not writhing in agony or blubbering like cowards.

"Death," according to poet Wallace Stevens, "is the mother of beauty"--and these poems, beautiful and not. Most are meditations on what (or who) kills us--and what makes that killing somehow endurable-faith, a sense of humor, honesty, and courage.

This poet is an often married Mormon man, growing older (but perhaps not up). He writes about the things and people in his life, as artfully as he's able. But he doesn't know a danged thing more about his death than you do about yours.