ELEGY Poem: “Eulogy Elegy”, by Sam Hendrian

We toil and suffer for years
Just to be condensed into a couple of bullet points:
He did this, he did that,
He loved peanut butter cups.

All the minor details perfectly remembered
And the major ones taken for granted:
Good husband, good father, good 9-to-5 laborer
Who barely saw a dollar of the pennies he earned.

Usually our greatest hits
Are those that are never released,
The smiles tossed at strangers on the side of the road
That made all the difference.

Then it’s off to the cemetery
To seal the deal on anonymity
Since it’s hard to distinguish between graves
Despite the grandchildren’s crafts and notes of gratitude.

There are those who equate endings with new beginnings
And those who believe both are equally irrelevant,
A pompous attempt to deny
Our cosmic insignificance.

But as sure as they’re sure we loved peanut butter cups,
There must be some semblance of seamless Truth
Towards which we each continue traveling
Long after the eulogist says “You’ll be missed.”