Remember Life and Death Are Indivisible
— and That Means One
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
First poems — and the last — let each one seize.
If it’s the first, make sure it cancels pasts
Since pasts refuse life’s serendipities.
As first its meaning fades forever, lasts.
If last, the lines defy your fate. They wing
Their way beyond Valhalla and its gloom
Of slavery mead. The last lines spill and sing
Like swans that coax their dying necks in doom.
The first and last, as one, the poem must
Push, masterful as deep tectonic plates
And heave the Rockies harsh above life’s crust
And death’s. Lines have to master loves and hates.
If first/last fails, what then? You brand lines now
In case forever fails to write its vow.
~ Phillip Whidden