The history of the end

in its briefest form, follows thus:

The place we fell to, fall to,

land in. It’s nearing noon and

in the northern hemisphere

the moon is falling

to Earth. We’re walking on

a dent it once– actually, it’s

just a crater obscured by scree.

After all, a volcano is full of

beginnings, isn’t it?

We agree, go on clambering

up ends of beginnings.

A mountain daisy puffs out

its lung-shaped petals at an end

which comes to tell us

it can’t afford to be found. Can we

afford to find it? No matter,

we came here to leave.

We always can leave wherever

we happen to be and return without

returning, but now we’re at the top

we must descend,

following the gap down between

the emerald lake

which like us knows only the weight

of that which is empty, and

a smell of sulphur,

its damp brows cloying in our lungs and throats,

telling us if we don’t inhale we

may keep going, but we’re tired of

going, tired of this almost

grasping of ends

which swell and stop with the altitude,

comparing, then, our scars to the earth’s,

realising we’re some person’s ending,

holding out our arms, quickly, to catch them,

still not noticing that on this plateau

the history of the end has never

known the end. We’ll stop

where the road merges with the sky.