-CERASOLI:

AN UNAUTHORIZED AUTOBIOGRAPHY

A poet’s autobiography is  his poetry. Everything else is just a footnote.  -Yevgeny Yevtushenko

                             PROLOGUE:    

That I will not be the first human being to achieve immortality doesn’t faze me. Upon my death I will be greeted either by an ongoing existence or by a dreamless, thoughtless eternal sleep and I find that I’m comfortable with either outcome. Having said that, however, while I do not fear death, I absolutely loathe the process of dying. The process begins at different times for different people, I suppose. For those in underdeveloped countries where medical facilities and health care are scarce; where food and drinkable water are in short supply, the argument could be made that it begins the day they are born.

For me, the process slowly began when I turned fifty and found I could no longer attack the racquetball with savage intensity, could no longer race from center field into left center and make the diving catch that robbed the batter of a triple, could no longer dribble the basketball at full speed, stop at the top of the key and drain a 20’ jump shot. I could still compete but the younger generation would, with rare exception, run rings around me. So it was, then, that I gave up the heavy duty sports and settled for an occasional round of poorly played golf or a half-assed attempt at tennis with people in my own age group, rationalizing the downgrade with the thought that at least I hadn’t sunk to the level of lawn croquet or bocce ball.

Around sixty, the physical changes in me were more than a little disconcerting and the face that stared back at me from the mirror was getting less and less recognizable - totally distorted and irreconcilable with the youthful image of myself that still existed in my mind‘s eye. Still, my health was good, my mental acumen was still at its peak, and although my mind was still rampant with distant memories and haunting echoes of competitive, romantic, and sexual conquests, life still held the promise of additional adventures waiting for my participation.

Now, at seventy-five, feeling the life force slipping away a little more each day; feeling my mind growing brain-weary from the tedious and mundane rituals of daily life, I tend to curse not the impending end but the ridiculous process that’s carrying me there. What in the hell was God thinking? He could have just as easily stopped the aging process at, say, thirty-five, limited us to, oh, a seventy year life span and let us maintain the body and spirit of thirty-five while we lived out the balance of that seventy years with zest and elan.

                      CHAPTER 1 - MY LIFE

I was born, I wrote a few poems, I did lots of neat stuff, I helped a few people along the way, was paired with an incredible brother, blessed with a wife, daughter and two granddaughters, made some remarkable friends and will leave this world in pretty much the same shape as it was when I was thrust from my mother’s womb. Did I make any difference at all? That's like asking how many angels can dance upon the head of a pin? Who knows? Maybe God. Maybe not.