✨ [at the end]
so much beauty ...
At the end of the Sound,
where the pines have been pushed back
by an unrelenting salt wind,
you will find that jingle-shell beach—
where little cups of pearly lemon peach
stretch out endlessly. Put your hands to them
and you will not know
where to stop.
So much beauty,
so much unrelenting jingle-chiming
beauty.
—L.L. Barkat
From The Novelist. Used by permission of the poet. Photo by Jacob Dyer, Unsplash license.
At The End
08/11/25
At the end really was one end
We thought was ours
Bogged with silences
Eyes cast into corners
In rooms which barely could
Suffer our presence together-
The music faded
We danced no more
Just turned and walked away
Too tired of each other
Even to look back
Relieved the end had come-
Now all these years later
You tell me you are fading
At the end
Not one not ours but the
End
I feel extinction everywhere-
Tonight I hear the last sigh
Of a star of a species
Of a part of me
Held in a pocket
Of forgotten hopes
Like magma biding-
Under the cool green cap
Of a tranquil sea
The whale song goes unanswered
Yet somehow we find
Our way to sit together
And see each other
At the end-
"... and you will not know / where to stop." Lovely, how the pearly beach and its remnants call us.