Listening for the End

Past my last farewell.

Photo by Trevor Kay on Unsplash

I don’t know if you can hear me
I’m too far away to tell
I’ve ridden this wave through a shrinking sky
And didn’t have time for my last farewell.

There was no set time or notice
The leaving is not of my free will
I was crouched down in anticipation
And biding the time up until.

The last post was silently playing
One bugler the only one left
I stood quietly listening for the end
The moment I could never have guessed.

I then watched at first from the ceiling
The soldiers danced a morbid routine
I was somewhere between now and never
Half gone but still in between.

And then the music started playing
A tune in touch with the clouds
It drifted through a new melody
Then lay down covered in shrouds.

I knew that the end had started
And new beginnings lay far down below
Once seen in a faraway lifetime
Now imprinted on clean winter snow.

I don’t know if you can still hear me
The echoes peal like a bell
As I ride on high up in a darkening sky
Peering past my last farewell.

©

David Rudder
25th April 2021

Thanks for reading.

“Lest we Forget”