The End [by Lera Auerbach]

The Tree – Acrylic on Canvas by Lera Auerbach

 

THE END

(1)

It is hard to know how to start a book.  

Its ending is an even greater mystery. 

How do you know you’ve finished
writing the book you're writing?

After all, the end is never the end
(unless you die just as you’ve finished the last sentence.)

Some may argue that even if you (meaning the reader)
or I (meaning the author) die in the previous sentence,
even that would be no more of an end
than death (which is, in all fairness,
rarely the end of anything.) 

This is why suicides are so useless.
Because nothing really ends,
and a lot of new troubles begin.
Everything remains, even more than before
outside of your control (since you are dead
and can't do much about it.)

(2)

Why have so many poets killed themselves?

(3)

I have a young peach tree, which we planted in the backyard of our dacha in hopes that one day it would produce delicious peaches. When we planted it – the tree looked healthy and full of green leaves. Soon its leaves turned yellow and then fell. All of them. Instead of a tree, I had what looked like a naked dead branch sticking out of the ground. 

Perhaps it is not dead, I thought. Perhaps this tree is of a poetic, sensitive nature and, just like a poet, needs attention and nourishment. Instead of pulling the dead stick out of the ground, I bought fruit-tree vitamins – large spikes full of nourishment, which I pressed into the ground all around the roots. The next morning, the tree was still without any leaves, but it was covered in tiny white flowers – the tree was alive and grateful. 

If we could find every poet in the moment of despair and offer him or her some vitamins, perhaps not so many would end up killing themselves. And there is always the next suicidal poet waiting for some kindness. Even if he or she has not written a single line of poetry.

 

Comments

[Bani Amin Shabuktagin]

Excellent poem. Thanks to the poet for writing such a nice poem.

[Gilla Fance]

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