Death and Joy

for the memory of W.B.

A longtime historian
friend, gold-standard trained
at Harvard, Cambridge, Yale,
has gone down hard:

neurological nightmare:
bodily and mental collapse.
Before the finale,
he said he was losing

big chunks of memory
like a glacier
calving blocks of ice.
Flip-flopping like a minor

sea monter in a water-
aerobics class to
"maintain health," you
obsess about your

friend's brutal rotting
and death. You look over
to another pool and see
a Black grandpa holding

a toddler in a swim-class.
He's shaved bald
with a trimmed gray beard:
a griot look you like.

You saw him before
and said, "I have a grandson
that age--isn't it great?"
"It is the greatest," he said.

Now you see again
his look of supreme joy
as he helps the kid
float. Joy and vicious

decay, along the way.
Are they supposed
to balance out?
Well, it's not math--

it's life. And death. Just
the way things are. You're glad
you glanced over to that other
blue pool as you wallowed.

Hans Ostrom 2026