Molly Frederick’s most recent poem to appear here was Brown-Eyed Susans (January 2012). 

The End Is Not Near
By Molly Frederick

Even the last word is not the last word.

This morning’s blizzard seemed
eternal.
But–abruptly–having nothing more
to say, it stopped:
A last word?

Soon a stiff brown leaf skipped past,
turning perfect cartwheels across
the snow’s pristine surface.
finally coming to a jittery halt:
Its last word.

Then golden needles fell from the
wintering pines
onto beds of lightly pocked snow
where time had pressed
its gently thumbprints:
The pine tree’s last word.

Once, I saw a row of ripe red tulips,
petals dropping onto early spring’s
deep surprise (one last snow)
come to bury all the flowers.
But noon soon changed the snow to
clots like cream, then off to mist
and high blue air:
Who’s last word?

Tides burnish fragments of lost, colored
glass–green, blue, amber,
rose-petal pink–to make bent dusty
jewels, smooth as a baby’s knees.
Something else has emerged:
A last word.

Yet nothing is ever finished. From that 
we can take comfort.
Even as we cling, trying
to hold on to what we thought
would last forever, and
was complete:

The last word.