Poet as Immortal Bird
A second ago my heart thump went and I thought, "This would be a bad time to have a heart attack and die, in the middle of a poem," then took comfort in the idea that no one I have ever heard of has ever died in the middle of writing a poem, just as birds never die in mid-flight. I think.
Credit
From You Never Know by Ron Padgett. Copyright © 2001 by Ron Padgett. Published by Coffee House Press. Used by permission of the publisher.
Author
Ron Padgett

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 17, 1942, Ron Padgett was elected as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2008.
Date Published: 2001-01-01
Source URL: https://poets.org/poem/poet-immortal-bird