My Legacy

    As college students, Reed and I took the class English Poetry of the Mid to 19th Centuries. I know that does not sound like Reed. He only signed up  because I did. We were dating back then and he had to at least pretend to be interested in what I was. It did not go well. I struggle with symbolism, but was a savant compared to literal thinker Reed. We neither studied nor interpreted things the same way. Dead poets nearly killed our relationship. But I was reminded of one of the poems we studied as I was trying to find a fitting finish for my soon to be self published (by absolutely no one's popular demand) book, Legacy of the Lamb. Legacy seems to imply something significant or final. I felt like I either needed to end it by writing something profound--or dying. And that is why I thought of Keats.

      Keats wrote a lot of odes, which I found easily forgettable, but the poem I remember started,

 

When I have fears that I may cease to be

   Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,

blah, blah, blah. 

     I remember thinking Keats was an arrogant jerk, but then I noticed he died at age 26, so apparently that was a legitimate concern. Though I did not die young and have no idea when I will, as Hamlet said, shuffle off this mortal coil, I wondered, if Legacy is to be my last book, what more do I want to say? Between my four published books and this latest, I have compiled almost everything I have written in my lifetime. Has my laptop finished gleaning my teeming brain? What if I write something epic later on and no one finds out about it? 

   I picked Legacy for the title assuming it would be my final book, but mostly because it started with an L, so it would match the others. The only ideas I have for a remaining title are "Leftovers of the Lamb", but that might get confused with a cookbook. And "Leavings of the Lamb" sounds like something that has to be scooped off the grass. Having flooded Amazon with so many books in so short a time, I have wondered if the Lord is hinting that my meter is about to expire. But mostly I am just happy to have my random writings organized and uploaded to a site that won't die when my computer does. And now I have official looking books to force on my children whether they want them or not. A practice I call drive by booking. 

    My written legacy may not be as useful as the collection of Cool Whip bowls my grandparents left, but they don't take up as much space. And at least my final words do not sound as arrogant as Keats,

 

—then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.