By Terry Greatrex
A response to Dylan Thomas
Do not go raging into that good light,
Old age should yearn and crave the spirit's day;
Change, change against the dying of this night.
For wise men at that dawn can know no fright;
Their candles lit against the dark mean they
Do not go raging into that good light.
Good men, rising from their knees before the sight
Of their little deeds strutting in a green, green bay,
Change, change against the dying of this night.
Wild men who dared the wind, who flared their kite
At it until embedded skeleton it lay,
Do not go raging into that good light.
Grave men who bend their souls to do what's right,
Then see, near death, the naughty truth in play,
Change, change against the dying of this night.
But these, my words, what mind and hand can write,
Will heart recite, or plead, afraid, with him that day;
"Dad, go gentle into that good night";
Or "Rage, rage against the dying of the light"?