Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Untitled

’Twill come, I know, as no surprise.
(I speak, of course, of my demise.)
The signs abound, for all to see:
A curtailed life expectancy.

My breath is short, my sighs are long,
The heart beats sound (to me, all wrong.)
Self-pity I will not embrace,
But these are facts that one must face.

My keepers shower me with praise,
Resorting to outworn cliches.
“Rehab will make you feel so great,”
They shamelessly prevaricate.

Meanwhile, I feel of strength a dearth,
Enough to keep me down to earth.
And if my reasoning is sound,
I’ll soon be resting underground.

“At times he made some people laugh.”
Might constitute my epitaph.


Stanley Siegelman, the Forward’s bilingual bard, passed away April 11 at the age of 87. Read reflections on Stanley’s life and work from his editor Daniel Treiman and his longtime friend Bob Brody. Read his writings for the Forward here.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.