Love Poem: Finals
Gerald Dillenbeck Avatar
Written by: Gerald Dillenbeck

Finals

If I had one last hour with you
would I be able and willing to speak?

What could we say or sing again?
Or perhaps something hidden from view until now,
our final hour,
otherwise left unsaid.

Would words get in our way?
We might compose a final anthem,
torch song,
jazz impovisation
dispelling my decomposition story.

Could you put me down
like a cherished family dog?
On my side
you behind
my head on your shoulder
listening to us breathe our goodbye,
drifting into a more timeless embrace.

What final words might I wish to hear
or might words feel too distracting
for this sacred task,
to fill one final hour,
squeeze out all unfinished agendas
before this final curtain.

I fear I would have no more clue
of what to say and do
my last hour
than I did not my first.
A final wail
to bookend my first noisy gasp for breath.

It seems less surprising now
that I so often feel a loss of words
when relationships become compressed by time,
or even imagined as our time's last hurrah.
Why would this last hour differ
from first and all self constraining hours between?

Final words and lives despise predestined mortality,
knowing Trees of Life predict Death Root Systems,
sitting and standing
and even lying down
bowing in to end
what we wondrously begin again.