Copy 18 using Louis Dudek 'When You Die of All Our Loves' as a guide...

I'm so caught up in poetry, I'm living it this month. So far I've managed to write one a day. This poem is from Day 18. I wrote it from a prompt in a challenge I'm doing.

I took a poem written and translated by Louis Dudek, and used it as a guide to write my own poem.

The poem I picked was entirely random, taken from one of my High school poetry text books; Poetry of Our Time edited by Louis Dudek.

Leave me a sign before you go away
Though there is no beauty or truth in us
Or in the lies we tell, better not to ask why
If none of me remains with you
In the end we die of love
You may tell them eventually
And you may die in ecstasy
It will remain a mystery
All those roads we travelled
far from ruined joy
The key has been my undoing
And you may die of love
I wait for a sign of your gentle leaving
I'll be gone too as I take my turn at ending
We are books, we die of love
I ask only if I may, that you go easy
And feel joy when you hear this song
In years along it will remind you of that time
You nearly died of love
A flower blossoms, the scent is sweet
It hurts me, I stumble
I have only paper and ink
I will plant a garden when you die of love.

"First, find a poem in a book or magazine (ideally one you are not familiar with). Use a piece of paper to cover over everything but the last line. Now write a line of your own that completes the thought of that single line you can see, or otherwise responds to it. Now move your piece of paper up to uncover the second-to-last line of your source poem, and write the second line of your new poem to complete/respond to this second-to-last line. Keep going, uncovering and writing, until you get to the first line of your source poem, which you will complete/respond to as the last line of your new poem. It might not be a finished draft, but hopefully it at least contains the seeds of one."

When you die of all our loves

I shall go and plant in the garden
A flower to bloom some fine morning
Half of metal and half of paper
To hurt my foot just a trifle
So you may die a death most sweet
That a flower might blossom
When you die of all our loves
I shall make in fashion of that time
A song to be sung for seven years
You will hear it, you will learn it
And your lips will thank me for it
And you will die a death most easy
So that I may do so
When you die of all our loves
I shall make of it two beautiful books
That they may serve you as a tomb
And I shall lie there in my turn
For I shall die on that same day
O may you die a death most gentle
In waiting for them
When you die of all our loves
I shall go and hang myself with the key
From the hasp of all our ruined joys
And the many roads conquered by us
Though no one will ever know by whom
And you may die a death most exquisite
So that I may tell them
When you die of all our loves
If too little remains with you
Then do not ask me why
In all the falsehoods that would ensue
We would be neither beautiful nor true
But you may die a death most gay
So that I might follow you