Sorry to bring up a touchy subject, but the fact is, we all have to die one day. Maybe it’s good sometimes to think a little bit about that. Not many people want to die, but since we can’t get around it, I suspect that most of us would like our passing to be a meaningful, emotional thing (the way you sometimes see it portrayed in the movies). Unfortunately, you’re probably not going to be feeling all that good as you die, and your mind probably won’t be at its peak of concentration. [Although some research shows that the brain has an electrical surge in its final moments, as dying brain cells all shoot off at once; this might cause a final moment of peak consciousness, possibly responsible for some reports of near-death experience.]

It would be nice to have some great insight in your final hours; maybe you’d finally see the meaning of life, or maybe you’d come up with some great message to pass down to young people that would inspire them in their struggle to fulfill the promise of humankind. That would be nice.

Unfortunately, your mind is probably going to be wandering at the time, and if you’ve lived all your life within the American consumer culture, it would be hard for the wandering mind not to think of commercials. Regrettably, that’s what your last thoughts are probably going to come down to. You’re going to think about commercials from 15, 25, maybe 40 years ago. I’m not dying right now (or so I hope), but my mind was wandering a bit this morning, and I started thinking about an old radio commercial for Skippy nuts. It featured the voice of someone impersonating Ed Sullivan, the TV variety-show impresario from the 1960s. Ed Sullivan wasn’t exactly cutting edge culture, but if you’re old enough to remember the first TV appearances of the Beatles and the Stones, then you remember Ed Sullivan and his odd speaking style (“tonight we have a really big shoe”). Somehow, my mind got stuck this morning on that stupid radio commercial, with the Ed Sullivan impersonator repeatedly practicing the line “new Skippy nuts are roaster-toasty fresh”. Goodness, is something like that going to be my final thought?

Or maybe the old toothpaste jingles are going to get me. Such as, “you’ll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent”. Perhaps I’ll just wonder whatever happened to Ipana toothpaste. Or maybe I’ll hear the musical jingle for MacCleans, which went: “It’s MacCleans, the toothpaste that cleans with a new kind of taste that is wild; what a taste, what a lot of zing; when you smile all the bells are gonna ring”.

Such will be the state of poetry in the final moments. Lesson: write your poems now, while your mind can still concentrate upon its truest and most beautiful inspirations. And maybe get someone to read them back to you when you’re on the way out, so as to keep your mind from wandering into the land of American advertising jingles in your final moments.