There will come a time
When the last spoken words
Will be heard by the gods
And their hearts will break
And descend in a green rain.
The accumulated anguish of the creatures
Will become a stubborn poetry
Rushing in like the swift wind
That replaces the lost songs of the dead.
These broken shards of sacred language
And persistence, these fragments
That defended what was threatened
What was going extinct, will become
Like the scatter of stars,
A delicate light sufficient
To illuminate the dark we have imposed.
Those who had no words
Will be given words like amaryllis
And sunflower, porcupine and flamingo,
Endangered words for their salvation
Like manatee and rhinoceros,
Or river and corn.
In other words, they will be given
Their own bodies to declare to each other
So it will be impossible to distinguish
Meaning from their particular lives.
Each will contribute only the single word
Of one’s body and soul,
So when one speaks a sentence
One will always have to speak
Of more than oneself.
To speak at any length
Whether in the eloquence of wolf howl
Or arpeggios of bird song, or
The chastened whispers of a new
Human speech will be to invoke
All that is living in one’s cogitations,
And so it will be
After the last words are finally spoken
That the first words will,
Once again,
Conjure Creation.
*
Deena Metzger - The Last Word part 3
from published Essay's & Poetry
Rattle 2004
