"Sun, don't go!" I was awake at last.
"No, go I must, they're calling me."
"Who are they?"
Rising he said, "Some day you'll know.
They're calling to you too."
Darkly he rose, and then I slept.
— From City Poet:
The Life and Times of Frank O’Hara
Poems on Passing
PREPARATIONS FOR A PARTING
The next morning,
they worked choosing among her poems
for "Otherwise," picked
hymns for her funeral, and supplied each
other words as they wrote
and revised her obituary. The day after,
with more work to do
on her book, he saw how weak she felt,
and said maybe not now; maybe
later. Jane shook her head: "Now," she said.
"We have to finish it now."
Later, as she slid exhausted into sleep,
she said, "Wasn't that fun?
To work together? Wasn't that fun?"
— Donald Hall
from Last Days
