“ … to prolong the lives of a few hundred thousand mostly elderly people is an irresponsible use of taxpayer’s money.”

- Toby Young, March 2020

“… and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular;

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music, does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.”

- Mary Oliver, When Death Comes

I want this life and more
of it. More days when I wake up
to see the face of my beloved, to open
windows upon new clouds, a wide sky,
the apple tree coming into blossom.
I want to be startled by the joy
of the fox, streaking golden across the garden, and bright
beaks of a blackbirds in the grass.
I want to watch steam rise slow
from a teacup, and seabirds
float in chevrons across the sunset. I want
to walk the coast admiring the wind
as it writes on the water,
enjoying waves and stone and tides,
and the stars wheeling above me through the darkness.
I haven’t got to Ithaca yet, still wanting
a longer journey.

I want to see my friends.
I want to read their poems and hear
their songs. I want to look after them
when they’re in need, like they do
for me. I’m not done
thanking them, or laughing and crying
with them, these generous, comradely people,
and I still have apologies to make,
and plans, and dreams to share.
I want this damn day
and a whole lot more.

There are younger people I might sacrifice myself for.
The three-year old fizzing with excitement, the sweet
twenty-six year old, amazing teenagers who know so much
more about the planet than the venal fools controlling it.
I want to see new generations
of feminists succeeding. I want to go on
witnessing people around the world working
for justice. I might give my life
for liberation. But I don’t fancy giving it up
for a thirty-year old white supremacist,
a forty-year old rapist, or any young man
who uses prostituted people like rags.
And I don’t see youth and age
as being in opposition.

So fuck you, eugenicists, ageists, fascists.
You who don’t value our lives
our knowledge, our dreams
like we do. We will not be written off.
We want our lives.
And I want a good death, when it comes,
when I’m ready. I know I am
a single speck of energy, manifested
from this cosmos in human form, given
just one chance to experience this
beautiful, intricate world. What luck,
and to share it with myriad others,
all of us essential, all of us worthy beings.
And when I’m ready to go back
into that formlessness, I will.
But for now I’m still learning,
I’m still loving
this life. So fuck you.
I want my life, and more.

- Frankie Green, 2020