The End of the Line

(A tribute to my friend Dalva whose poem this is. Poignant, sad, even a little depressing, this dark destination we all pass through!) 

Ah! when I arrived at the vortex of life, 

When nothing more, nothing around me, was ascending, 

When at last I arrived at the end of the line 

It makes no difference whether I go or come. 

When the loves and passions and friendships, 

And their range of inescapable emotions 

No longer sound like drums inside my chest, 

Being just sad, poor and sultry echoes, 

 When my bodily properties, if all regathered, 

Again in these clothes, 

My hat, one or two books, some poems 

And a feeling of not winning what I wanted, 

 Ah! when I stopped, at last, at the end of the road 

And I considered the evil that I had within me, (and what I did not have) 

I was silent, like a rock, 

Like a tree in the edge of an abyss, 

Like an arrow that was loose in the bow, 

Like an idea that would never come to fruition, 

Like a shadow, or like a rough draft, 

Of everything I dreamed, and did not have. 

This is the end of the line ……..

Dalva Maria Ferreira

Sao Paolo