A slew of strategies exist
for bringing discourse to a close –
for roping off each turn and twist
and dressing them in clouds and misty
prose.
We make an art of how we end,
devoting energy and sweat
to siphoning each wayward trend
and leaving little to defend
or cause much fret.
All endings make us somewhat sad.
We know someday we’ll start again.
Although a respite won’t be bad,
we’ll forfeit much of what we had
when Now retreats to Then.
This poem, indeed, has seen its day.
It’s raised its case, it’s made its stands.
Behold it in its stacked display
of cinquains lean and cantos gay.
The author now dusts off his hands,
removes the scaffolding, the ropes,
the signs of discontinued strands.
He boxes up his unused tropes
and looks up to the upper slopes
that circumscribe this vale of shifting sands.