The Final Poem

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And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth. 

***

"Late Fragment is the final poem in the poet and short story writer Raymond Carver's (1938-1988) last published work, A New Path to the Waterfall, a collection that was written while he was dying of cancer. I value the Carver poem for a number of reasons. Mostly, I admire its simplicity and its poignancy. There is no measure of irony or artifice in it. There is also an underlying sense of celebration - this, in the affirmative "I did" and in the realization that when all is said and done, to call oneself beloved and to feel oneself beloved (a kind of proof) is enough."

******* 
Excerpt from the article How Poems Work by Aislinn Hunter.

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