The Last Place on Earth
Gaylord Brewer
Discard all remains
of currency; what's for sale
here can't be bought.
Climate, terrain,
your lips won't convey,
only grunts of raw heaven
to signify weariness,
wonder, spirit hushed
from its cell; whatever life
means. Here the road ends,
what's left are larks
in necklaces of evergreen,
martins dropping
in arms of collapsed roofs.
A local knotted over a stick,
another snapping rugs
in a window; they touch their
heads and turn away.
Your sort arrive sometimes
to forget their names,
always failing to forget.
When Sunday comes,
and you awaken to a square
of crooked sunlight
burning a crooked floor,
if the floor holds
beneath your body's weight
you must reconfigure
the miraculous and absurd.
A child's shadow,
bell and bellow of a lamb.
Only then may you
fill your sack with wine,
and bread, and salt,
a blade worn thin and useless,
a wedge of cheese
and a single tomato—
all that you have.
The path snakes north
to a stream muttering in foam,
to the opened valley
and a chapel 1000 years old—
flaking, brilliant,
your destination all along.
The virgin would embrace you,
were she not so cold in her
centuries of dust.
Her hand yet extends
a derelict grace; let it be.
Instead, stand on the edge
beneath a sun
that too has no choice,
stand as a man might
have stood when men existed,
fear in his stomach,
and hunger, and the wind
on his neck announcing
a lonelier place than this.
