Amy Kitchener's Angels Without Wings Foundation
Presents the 2008 Maine Senior Poet Laureate

Paul Averill Liebow MD-FACEP

PAUL AVERILL LIEBOW, 61, Bucksport, Maine, played first string rugby as a right wing (not "winger") next to George Bush at Yale, then at University of California at San Diego, Harvard, and Stanford. He is a committed Natural Resources Council of Maine and National Wildlife Federation environmental advocate and Maine EMS physician and board member of Maine Physicians for Social Responsibility. He is now (10/2/08) waiting for a heart transplant on the 7th floor of The Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. His sign is Sagittarius.

When Death Comes

When Death comes sneaking,
To jump on my chest and
Thrust his dagger
Of white light between my eyes;
When Death comes,
With bristles and moaning bells;
When death comes,
Tinkling like the spring wind
Upon the Prairie:
I want to step boldly through
The crack between the Worlds,
Knowing already
What it's going to be like-
To lift up the edge of the Sky
And drift forever-
Cradled in the loving embrace of
Immaculate white light-
My spirit floating as free as thistledown
Just to ... be in my place
With the oneness of infinite mystery,
On the dawn wind of space.

I want to look upon all of my life
As rainbows and thunder,
And all time as a sunset,
And see eternity
As the blinking of God's eye,
And I will remember
Each of my friends,
As rare and as singular
As a nocturnal flower;
And each friend's name
As a fruit picked
At the peak of ripeness,
And each of my loved ones
As an angel
Fallen preciously to Earth.

And when it's over,
I want to be able to say:
"All my life I rode
The whirlwinds of amazement,
Taking the whole Universe
Into my soul-
I don't want to wonder
If I have made of my life
Something useful and real,
Or find myself
Frightened and sighing-
Wondering why I never
Fully inhaled this amazing World."

After Mary Oliver

Paul Averill Liebow
Bucksport, Maine