Finality: An Ode To Eliot

I.

If you were found in October,

Somewhere in between park and place

Caught amidst idle dreams and doubt,

Frail visions dancing in and out. 

Perhaps the poets had it right,

You too will die with the dying

Leaves, ‘ashes of youth¹’ soon dispersed

Giving yourself² back to earth.

II.

If you wondered in November

Half asleep through city gardens

Between supplication and space,

A once pregnant, now barren place,

Where death and dirt perform a dirge

Over your fickle mortal frame.

You know, I know, we know, the end

For pauper or pope will not bend.

III.

Incandescent autumnal fire

Only makes the finitude bite,

Like thick frost on December morn,

Knowing we will die and be torn.

Yet, if you are the honest sort,

Sailing to Grey Havens³ is not

Final resort. Mortality,

Like autumn, reminds violently,

That to outlive kin and country,

Friends and family is but curse.

A futile, yet immortal chase 

Waits for finalities embrace.

IV.

But when you find yourself amidst

Your bleak, final January

Not knowing by which way you came,

Now, recall Eliot’s refrain:

‘In my end is my beginning⁴’

 Inside our primeval garden,

The first day of eternal spring,

Blooms aside pauper, pope, and King;

This old land you already knew,

As you were sitting beneath the Yew,

Breath from Eden filling each lung,

Calling out when the world was young.

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1. An allusion to Shakespeare’s 73rd sonnet. To read this lovely composition see the link here.

2. A subtle allusion to Robert Browning’s splendid poem Among The Rocks.

3. The allusion seen here will be familiar to readers of J.R.R. Tolkien. The elves and Frodo must sail from Middle Earth to the Grey Havens as they have become wearied by the evil of men and tired of their immortality.

4. A vital theme all throughout Eliot’s work, this statement appears in variations in many places Eliot writes. I specifically drew the inspiration for this poem from East Coker and Little Gidding. These are two of the four parts of Eliot’s Four Quartets.