"Requiem" by John Updike

the photograph is not an illustration; rather it is a visualization of my perception of ideas within the text
the poem, as I read it, accords with my sentiments
but John Updike was among the demi-deities of the 20th century
he will not be forgotten; but history can be difficult and there is always a tidal fall and rise,
but despair or better, the self regarding one's own being can only evoke dismay, unless it is a fool that gazes at the image

Requiem

It came to me the other day

Were I to die, no one would say,

“Oh, what a shame! So young, so full

Of promise --depths unplumbable!”

Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes

Will greet my overdue demise;

The wide response will be I know,

“I thought he died a while ago.”

“For life’s a shabby subterfuge,

And death is real, and dark, and huge.

The shock of it will register

Nowhere but where it will occur.

John Updike in forthcoming collection , "Endpoint and Other Poems"