When I read Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray I thought how morbid to be writing poetry sitting among all those dead people. Then I thought that those cows in the lowing herd that were winding slowly o'er the lea are now dead. Every one of them dead as a doornail. They’re not mooing anymore. They’re dead.
That got me thinking about other things. You know in “Oh what a beautiful morning” from Oklahoma? They sing “All the cattle are standin' like statues; They don't turn their heads as they see me ride by”. That’s because they’re all dead. For goodness sake! Nor would the corn be as high as an elephant’s eye because by now the elephant and the corn would be dead. There’s not a happy song left in the world because most things that inspired the songs are now dead.
The bluebird of happiness is dead.
When I went to the library a day or two ago I was fingering my way through a history picture book, and I thought that all those people in the pictures are dead. History is about dead people. There are dead people everywhere. Dead! Dead! Dead!
Some people are obsessed with dead people. Thank goodness I’m not. That’s one thing I’m dead sure about.
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