The Last Word

 

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