You can listen to this poem in audio, too. Press play below or download as an MP3 here.

 

The Last Day

 

There was the day I realized

that I would end wanting more.

 

That I wouldn’t lie in a hospital bed

or some other deathbed

saying: I completed it.

 

I would lie panting for more,

reaching, still hungry.

 

Not because I had left things incomplete,

or made some mistake, but because

this is the way of the living.

 

After  that

I  knew I was not here to finish it,

to consume it, to become satisfied.

 

It would be more like the carousel,

when my son goes on and I stand

at the rim, and it passes

in a whirl, in a blur.

 

And I catch whatever colors I can,

and his smile always     always

pulls out of view too fast.

 

It will be like that.

It will end like that.

 

So there is no need to try to hold it.

There is no need even

to cup my hands.

 

– Tara Mohr

 

photo credit: rawpixel