WHEN I think of my father,
I think of him dying,
Alone and in pain;
An ignoble end
To a prideful man:
Days rotten from having
Struck out on the throne

He wasn't old.
And didn't have to die alone.
For the cost of a kind word in time
His end might have been met
Surrounded by devoted progeny
A tab, alas unpaid.

Fuck it, I'm all about Arbor Day.