In the end, a final breath.
No sight or sound, I think,
but the universe contained
within a single ebb and flow.
That breath,
totem of a greater tide,
joins its kin within
a single cosmic sigh.
For each life, one season,
and from its farthest ebb, no return.
No call of moon nor sun nor stars may rouse it,
singly, from its last retreat.
Yet upon the sea there are many tides,
and on the tides many waves
in turn that rise and fall and
clamor to be heard and not to die.
I am told
of a universe that expands,
and of a last retreat
from which there is no escape.
But perhaps the breath of life, once drawn,
does not exhaust itself
but joins again a greater tide,
summoned by a greater moon.
A wave, once dashed upon the strand,
does not rise and fall again.
yet join it must the tide that brought it thus
to end upon unyielding shores.
The universe expands;
the universe contracts.
Who is to say it is not called
by a greater moon
that summons tides on endless shores
where endless waves exhaust themselves
though singly rise no more.