On LONGEVITY PLUS: a Rhymed Reflection
POETRY FORMAT, 13 Nov 2017
Francisco Gomes de Matos – TRANSCEND Media Service
If an octogenarian you have become, how do you celebrate your longevity:
By humbling sharing your appreciation with humanity?
Yourself what would you ask?
Please take these questions as part of your longevity-based task:
DID I…
1. treat my spouse with dignity?
share our home/family life with deep, sustained amity?
2. help educate children/young people at home/work/school?
use every language I speak as a peaceful tool?
3. interact with other octogenarians by phone/email/ ordinary post?
To members of my family/friends/visitors from abroad act as a host?
4. engage in some type of continuing senior citizen education?
experience some form of sustained religious/spiritual preparation?
If you were asked to summarize your view on longevity, something like this would you say?
“Longevity is a blessing: the privilege of living another/one more day.”
On your Longevity Plus are you happy to write?
To do so will give your journey on Earth a new, humanizing light?
To your family/community/country your legacy what will be?
All of Humankind with kinder/more forgiving feedback eyes to see?
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Francisco Gomes de Matos, Ph.D. is an applied peace linguist from Recife, Brazil. He has degrees in Languages, Law, and Linguistics. He is Professor Emeritus at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco where he is active in the Dom Hélder Camara Human Rights Commission. He is one of the pioneers in Linguistic Rights (author of 1984 Plea for a Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights) and in the emerging area of Peace Linguistics. Currently he is President of the Board, ABA Global Education (www.abaweb.org). He can be reached at fcardosogomesdematos@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 13 Nov 2017.
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