There are those who check the obituary

In the local paper, be it the Hull Daily Mail

Or the Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Before they decide to get up on a morning

(In T S Eliot’s day, it was the Boston Evening Transcript.)

 

These winter mornings, I know how they feel

Waking cold, to a grey dawn smeared across my window

But I have a technological solution:

I check my Facebook status.

 

If I have posted something recently,

I am still alive:  -  or my head fell on the keyboard

While I was still logged in.

The bonfire of our vanities

Is fed by our inanities,

But it’s better than being dead

Allegedly.

 

While the white streak of the Rowan’s bole

Pierces the soil like lightning;

While the early squirrels forage,

And the birds seek seed and sustenance;

And the huge annual miracle of spring

Stirs unseen, deep down beneath the compost

Of last year’s death:

 

While there is still a chance

I may be alive,

I will continue to rise,

Till God, or someone, tells me otherwise.