A Song on the End of a Life
On the day a life ends,
maple leaves pirouette along sunlit sidewalks.
A cardinal whistles from the treetops:
first a sigh, then a swell.
Strangers across the platform smile, and smile back
as it should always be.
On the day a life ends,
impatient cars scuttle homeward, honking.
A boat bobs down the burbling river,
cradled by the currents that wind toward the lake.
Bells chime sweetly in the night-blue air
as the city blinks slowly to light.
And those who grasped for meaning, some small mercy
are disappointed.
And those grasped each day only for another
do not believe it is happening now.
As long as magnolias awaken in the spring,
as long as space-dust falls and turns to stars,
as long as caged canaries sing unheard,
No one believes it is happening now.
Only a young pale man who would grow old
but will not, the deathless body has already chosen –
The woman he loves curled beside him,
clasping his hand to her heart, whispering like a prayer:
There is no other end of a life.
There is no other end of a life.
Inspired by Czeslaw Milosz’s “A Song on the End of the World”
This poem is dedicated to N., a patient of mine who passed away this spring at the age of twenty-five from fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma, a rare liver cancer. He was a veteran, a husband, and a foster dad, and he deserved so much more time.
To learn more about fibro, check out the Fibrolamellar Cancer Foundation website.
