Told by a soothsayer

So I told a friend I’ll live till seventy,

Told that that was told by a soothsayer to me,

A heart-attack and there is Yama’s Buffalo,

The heart skip two, on a noose I'll follow.

Then I got a little bit more scared,

What if the soothsayer has wronged the math,

Seventy could just as likely as fourth-four,

Perhaps Yama will give me another hour or more.

I wish to take you my son to Khartoum,

Take you to see the merging Nile,

I wish to walk the Hoan Kiem my daughter,

And talk to you about your mother’s smile.

Do scatter my ashes into the running water,

Life is short and long is the hour,

Least where grandfather builds Rama’s bell tower,

Life is short and long is the hour.

Chats with Luq, Ampang, December, 2023