Pushing up Daisies

"My boy, don't do what the other people do!"—Gurdjieff's grandmother

My own Grannie, between drinks,

lighting a Craven "A" (her favourite brand—I bought them for her) philosophized:

"Die young and make a handsome corpse!"

I didn't take that advice—I took Yiayia Gurdjieff's instead, and three-quarters

of a century later, touch wood, I'm still here, "pushing up daisies," as Grannie Murie put it,

in perspective, but handsomer these days,

or so I hopefully tell myself, than ever.

I knew things that "the others" didn't

—or so it always seemed to me—

which I tried in vain to explain to them.

Even a yawn would have been some kind of affirmation!

None came—perhaps I'd expressed it badly,

although they said I wrote like an angel.

Needless to say, one does the best one can.

And now my native land seems on the brink of ruin.

But then again, when one comes to think of it,

the abyss is a yawn of sorts, wouldn't you say?

February 5, 2025