The garden is a metaphor for the soul. It is universal, reaching across cultures, time and space, beyond the personal to the universal. This poem is about a garden, or a special place you shared together with your loved-one—partner, parent, child, friend—a place you now must leave or that will never be the same without them. I wrote the poem with those of you in mind who might one day read it.
Beautiful Endings Poem
As your days in this place
draw to a close
you see beauty everywhere
in the garden that you
planted and grew.
Absorbed
you want to take in
every moment
as though the whole world
is speaking to you.
We constantly meet
the little endings
like the loved pair of shoes
that can’t be repaired
just one more time
and sadly, we discard them.
All practice runs
for the Grand Endings
we each must face.
It seems simple enough,
the ending itself
has its own beauty
and like a forgotten glimpse
of the Holy Grail
the world lights up
with a hundred bird songs.
This chapter is done.
And if you listen
the whole world
is speaking to you.
Di Percy, 2018
Di Percy
December, 2018
First published in “Standing in the Fire” by Diana E. Percy, 2020