A Septet for the End of Time, Part III: The Lovers

The sequence of poems, A Septet for the End of Time, by Julie Boden is divided into seven sections, inspired by Jacques speech in Shakespeare’s As You Like It and by Messiaen’s music Quartet for the End of Time. How would we, at each of these stages of life, hope to meet the end of time if it should come? This poem, the third in the sequence, is written from the viewpoint of the Lover meeting the fins du temps.

III

Not salmon, new potatoes on a plate or chilled white wine; a Pinot Grigio.
No roaring fires, no seas to wave goodbye. No time to mourn by willow bank.
No cellos, clarinets or violins. But let wild garlic, crushed by runners’ feet,
breathe out the way of things.
And stone will tell the secrets of its past and mossy bank play pillow to our heads
and dew shall dress the blades, each blade of grass – and birds? Let there be birds;
thornbird, Phacellodomus, and thrush, a speckled thrush, a bird of song, whose trills
form standing waves upon the Styx.
An echo of my voice will call you love and you shall kiss each finger, nape of neck
and brow. Your tongue will tell the mountain of each breast; the valleys where we both
once dreamed we’d go.

Julie Boden