PRELUDE TO PRELUDE

  

What paradox! What irony!

That piece at which you toiled away

For most of your career,

Postponing, revising,

Meticulously assessing

In light of what you planned—

That prelude to your masterpiece

Turned out to be the very thing

For which you were preparing!

And so it is that every life

Is prelude to itself:

Every death the publication

Of ones magnum opus.

This is the human condition.