As If the Last

I look at every sunset I see, as if it will be the last.
And every sunrise that I get up soon enough to see,
The same: those twin glories of divine eyesight,
That border either side of night.
For the present moment becomes swiftly part of the past;
And the future--to the ends of eternity--
Is composed of times that will come to be,
And then vanish in the wasted world of what once was--lost and vast.
So I look at every sight I see, as if it just might be the very last.
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So also do I hear,
And listen to the singing year.
Yes, the year: not only months or weeks or days.
They speed by in a  super-swift haze.
But even years go by--they fly--too very fast!
I heed every sound, and wring the world of sounds to love.
For the stardust that forms my flesh--which anciently fell from a vast distance above--
To dust or ashes must disintegrate; it is ineluctable final Fate.  So my hearing, as my gaze,
Gorges itself on magic and miracle, on beauty and delight:
For there will be a last sound that I will hear, just as there will be a last seen sight.
For I myself must vanish all into the vast past.
Just as for every sight I see, so for every sound I hear: at some point in time, it wil be the last.
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So too for every other lving sense; a final time for all of the senses.
There shall come a time that, for the last time, I smell a flower.
Also individual last times for each kind: a last time for the richly fragrant rose;
And then, the final hour,
That I shall sense the scent of the honeysuckle, which so sweetly the air incenses.
There also shall be a last taste of absolutely anything;
And then, separately, a last taste for everything.
I may already have had my last taste of real icre cream.
I may never again taste pork or beef or any other meat.
And even of the things that my holistic diet permits me to eat,
There will come, at last, the final time.
My whole life has been, and shall have been, a mere passing dream;
Every day has been like a mortal flower, whose life was bittersweet and fleshly fleet.
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There shall also be a last time for touching anything;
And, individually, a last time for touching everything.
I probably have already touched for the last time the beloved face of a lover.
Likely, for the last time already, my lips have touched a lover's lips.
And for all the touches of love, for me, probably, the last time has already come to be.
And though I may touch a million things more,
Before I pass from brief light into eternal night through death's dark door--
And though each one individually will have its one last time--
I stop here, choked with tears; desolate beyond all hopes and fears.
The grief of this, to lose all loving touch,
Is more than I can bear to remember--too terrible to think upon--it is just too much.
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For everything I do, too, there shall come a last time.
So I will be kind while I can, and help anyone when I am able.
The sweet fleet light of life soon sounds the depth of Something supremely silent--infinitely sable.
Someday, too, I shall shape my last sentence, write my last word, and birth my heart's last rhyme.


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--by Michael LP, aka MLP
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet
Copyright © 2011 by Michael L.P.  All rights reserved