Final Horizons
a poem
Have you risen early enough to see the birds
peel back the dawn and tuck away the moon,
and watched the first steps of morning’s light
traverse the land?
The horizon of becoming
is as slender as a moment,
now fades into past like a whisper
and is forevermore a memory.
As I stroll through death’s garden
I ponder the dawn of each moon-journeyer
lying in their staged repose
beneath wilted plastic bouquets.
Did they rise to mark the betweens,
the aching heartbeats of living
before they were covered
in the soil of memorialdom?
Did they hug each laugh before it began,
welcome every tear before it fell—
or did they only notice the darkness afterward,
condemned to counting stars of regret from eternal beds?
I wonder these things and so much more
I have questions yet to ask,
but as dusk nears the crow calls
and I abandon the dead to their secrets.