This week I am presenting my "Death Poems Book" to an audience attending a program on "The Art of Comfort & Joy: A Tribute to End-of-Life Care Providers" sponsored by Compassion & Choices of Northern California (www.compassionandchoicesnca.org). It'll be the first time I've combined my interest in art and interest in poetry for a presentation.

I began my "Death Poems Book" several years ago after sitting at bedside of individuals who were dying. I read to these people from the Bible, from poems they knew and loved, from poems I knew and loved, and sang to them as well. I realized that when it comes time for me to be dying, that I didn't want to live it to chance what others might choose to read to me.

Since poetry has been so much a part of my life, I decided to take some of my favorite poems, and, in the manner of medieval illuminations art, create a book of poetry illuminations. Slowly I have added poems to the book which I keep near my bedside. Some of the poems are old standards, poems of such beautiful language that they comfort and inspire me; others are poems about loss or death that I find quirky, amusing, disturbing, intriguing. I don't think my tastes will change dramatically when I am on my own deathbed, so I continue to cull from a wide range of poetry selections to create this book.

There's no escaping the fact that I'll be on a deathbed someday. I hope I will have time to say goodbye to loved ones. When they come to visit and want to do something for me, they can take my "Death Poems Book" and read from it. I hope by that date, it will be full, full, full of great poems that I have illustrated.