So. This is my 1000th post here on Miss Print!
Since I actually noticed the milestone I figured it was a fine one to mark.
And since I’m on a poetry kick, it seemed like a fine one to mark with another poem I wrote. Since this is a milestone marking the passing of time, I decided to share a poem I wrote in 2008 about dying. This is inspired by an art history motif (momento mori) that reminds people death is unavoidable. I always liked the way the name sounds and the fresco in the poem made an impression when I learned about it in my Renaissance art class. I also liked the inscription and how it sounded so I decided to write a poem around it. And this might sound incredibly self-centered but it’s a poem I think about a lot. I really like it. I hope you do too.
Here it is:
Memento Mori
In 1428 Masaccio made a fresco for a Florentine church.
At the bottom of the picture
beneath the Holy Trinity
he put a skeleton illusionistically painted as though within a tomb.
An inscription above the would-be tomb reads:
“I was once what you are,
and what I am you will become.”
We are so fragile.
But no one seems to notice,
living with eyes half closed.
Pretending that a life so brief is time enough.
—
(This poem is an original work by me. Copyrighted. Please don’t steal it.)
Miss Print 