To Be Savored at a Later Date by Duane Vorhees

It takes a long time to get old.

25,000 mayfly lives.

A million molecular extinctions.

When at last I finish the course

the doctors will award me a diploma,

my certificate of achievement,

and the papers will publish

my C.V. and my survivors.

And, for a few days,

everyone will say nice things about me.

Duane Vorhees is an American who has spent most of his adult life in Korea, Japan, and Thailand, though he recently returned to his boyhood home of Farmersville OH to touch base with his past. While there, Hog Press of Ames IA published three of his poetry collections, HEAVEN, THE MANY LOVES OF DUANE VORHEES, and GIFT: GOD RUNS THROUGH ALL THESE ROOMS.