for Jeff, with a line by Joseph von Eichendorff
You say you think your last words
will be a poem. That your last exhalation
will be a final musing about old men
and small towns, some syllable offered
in praise of the dogwood or the river,
a phrase unfinished, unpolished, one raw
pearl sitting sandy on the tongue.
Until now I have never wondered
what words I will speak at my own end.
A prayer, perhaps, asking Holy Mary to pray
for me now, and now. Or a delicate weaving
together of love and leaving handed
gently to a waiting ear. I would like
to have the courage to close
with a question—that as the world
turns evening-red I would look
around and ask, lightly, could this perhaps
be death? That I would close my eyes curious,
my unknowing the final truth of myself,
ribboning out into eternity. But a poem—
to end with creation, still rolling words
around in your mouth like gemstones,
searching for a last way to bear beauty
into being—could there be
a more generous death than this?
