The Last Song

"Running from you" K.W. 2011

"Listen now, please
Because this is the last song, my love
The last time I call your name to the shadows

I am going now, my love
I am walking now
While I still can
While I still can smile, my dear
It’s the last song, the last verse
The last time I whisper your skin to the falling dew

I sing this song quietly
Humming your heartbeat to the forest
Telling the trees of your eyes and your brows
I sing for the silent oaks the ballad of your hands
For the last time
I sing a caress through your shoulder blades
Down the length of your spine

There is no music but the wind through the leaves
But that is the harmony of your haunches
Of your hips
It’s the music of your cat-like feet
Of your forearms, of your collar-bones

I whistle to the stones and the winding path
A tune for your jaw-line
And one for your throat
A tune along the ripple of your ribcage
And a long tender one down and down
Where my desire and yours converge
Untouched

It is the last song, my love
The last lines
The last rhymes
Before nightfall claims my voice
Before love splits my heart
Before the wind stops the chant of your lips
To intone a dirge to my lost soul

As I walk softly into the gathering dusk
Threading the silent way of the forest
Past the split oak
Over the fallen pine that will never shiver again
Down the whispering fern glade
The quiet song I sing for your eyes
For your searing eyes, my dear
Is the last song, the very last

My love."


("The Last Song" by K.W. 2011)