Readers Blog "The Perfect Life' John Koethe

This was certainly and interesting poem , due to the fact that it made me reflect on my personal life .What I perceive  form this poem is that Koethe is telling a story a story about someone’s life Whether Koethe  is talking about his life or someone else’s life this we do not know .However what seems interesting about this poem is how accurate it seems to be when describing a standards person’s  life , this may reflect on the title "A Perfect Life" because the protagonist of the poem describes his life which appears to be a very standard life . It seems to me as if as though the author is describing in brief and very figurative phrases every part of a man’s life .At the beginning the protagonist tells us how he lives a perfect life which isn’t much but it’s good enough for him, in this part it seems to be like the protagonist is talking about his youth and his adolescence in which he is pretty much happy and satisfied but yet he fails to discover the value of life. The protagonist continues to describe his life by stating Looking forward in anticipation, looking back   In satisfaction at the conclusion of each day this part appears to be explaining how the author continues to grow up and begins to plan his life .So on and so on the poem continues to describe the protagonists life through simple yet in a way deep phrases .My favorite part of the poem yet seems to be the end , in which the author phrases :"In a strange room, leaving merely   A blank space, like a hole left in the wake   Of a perfect life, which closes over”. This last part of the poem is my favorite one because , death in my opinion is the ultimate human being fear ,therefore for someone to describe death seems pretty hard specially when your describing it in  one phrase , however the author doesn’t really dare to tell us what comes after life he simply describes a hole opening and closing and inside the hole and empty white space .Koethe ends the poem in a deep , mysterious and frightful way ,frightful in my opinion because after he describes this person’s life which seems relatively happy he describes death as an empty space what does Koethe want us to perceive from this that there is nothing after death simply an eternity of emptiness this in my opinion is pretty scary and this was the part that made me reflect on my life , what really comes after death ? Then i continued asking myself questions according to the poem, I am myself living a perfect life in what part of the poem am i and many other questions that made me think on the purpose and the meaning of life .As a good catholic that I am I concluded that I would let god lead my path through life. Finally I thought about Koethe and asked myself why would he write a poem like this? Life is everything that has ever existed for the human race and how could someone dare to summarize life in a simple poem? And this dear reader is what I consider interesting and special about this poem the courage of Koethe to summarize life in a simple yet deep poem