End Song
By John Herlihy

I
There is one final door,
Through which we all pass.
It opens without a knock,
There is no looking back.
The present that we know and love,
Finally gives way to the past.
A silence falls heavily,
A blackness arrives,
Night without day,
When nothing survives.

II
Its presence is proverbial,
Its opening begins as a crack.
Then suddenly it opens,
There is no looking back.
But there in the distance,
A pin-prick of light
Announces its arrival,
First as a luminous speck,
Then as a flaming fire,
Calling forth feelings of trust.

III
No one knows the moment
When this door will open.
When the moment does arrive,
Then destiny will have spoken.
The final word uttered,
With the closing of the door.
Shut tight and without recourse,
Never to be open again.
Locked against the world,
There is no record of return.

IV
Trees bow in prostration,
As they wither from the roots.
Flowers lose their bloom,
Folding like paper tissue.
Birds find eternal shade,
Wings folded in the shadows of a glade.
The horse lays down in the meadow,
For the first and last time of its life
The seagull disappears into the sea mist
And becomes folded into the night.

V
Not a living thing lives,
That does not die;
Even the blue of the heavens,
Gives up its place in the sky.
The blackness of night
Draws its color from deep space.
It too mysteriously arrives
Like an uninvited guest,
Entering the mosaic of the world,
To sing end song to the day unfurled.