Fourth grade and nine years old.
It’s reading time in class:
A book of old Greek myths
From which I then did pass

To old Norse myths as well.
But there, the gods all died;
Valhalla’s twilight fell,
A type of suicide.

My jumbled mind then thought
Of where there Greek gods went,
Since they were not around,
Their powers long since spent.

And I dreamed of a scene,
Hephaestus at his forge;
When all the rest were gone,
Across some void or gorge.

I asked him why he gave
Attention anymore,
He’d been the last Olympian
For some long countless score

Of years. But then he said to me
“So will it be with you;
You’re young and filled with promise, but
Your time is coming, too.”

He then laid down his tools
And slowly walked away;
Ye gods of earth, take heed,
For Death
Will always
Have
His day

(…)