The Last Day

He sat on the deck overlooking his yard and watched the sun as it began to sink in the west.

Clouds made shadow plays of the fresh cut lawn; small birds flit from tree to tree.

The warmth felt good, yet there was a strange coldness from within.

He starred empty eyed as small silhouetted creatures danced on the breeze.

His treatments for cancer were over, yet something did not feel quite right.

He had the energy of a rock and he wondered if his end was in sight.

He had gone to the store earlier that day shopping for Thanksgivings feast.

Yet upon his return he walked numbly to the deck inwardly admitting defeat.

The throngs of shoppers had worn him down; crying kids and lost husbands going aisle to aisle.

He remembered the years back…not twenty, nor thirty, but just three or four.

He could rise in the morning and under a hot summer sun labor all day.

He felt good…strong, able to take to task whatever should come his way.

But now, but now old and useless no matter how hard he tried.

Then in the silence of his mind he recalled a biblical verse…

“There’s a time to be born, and there’s a time to die.

The sun then set and the hush of night fell across the land.

He closed his eyes in rest putting his tomorrow in Christ Jesus’s hand.

J. Allen Wilson © 11/22/2011