NaPoWriMo Day 30 - Endings
This seems like a good poem to end this month on. It’s been a fun ride and I definitely want to get back to writing.
As my husband likes to say, “Catch you on the flip side.”
Whenever I read a poem I always skip to the ending because I never have enough patience to read the entire thing. If my attention isn't captured by a shiny, dangling image in the first few lines I stop reading the poem altogether. I go to the end and I hope to find a Holy Grail of meaning. A bright epiphany that the poet concludes after much debate in her mental purgatory. A good ending should invoke some catalytic feeling whether it's delivering a parting blow to the stomach, staring blankly into space deep in thought, or trying to hide a few tears unwillingly shed. The poem matters little to me if the ending doesn't leave a piece of itself behind to seep inside of me. I remember my Mother would read me fairy tales and I would ask her, "Oh but how does it end? What happens then? Does the Prince reunite with his true love or does he perish in an heroic death by fire? Does his lady wait for him forever or does she settle for Prince Homely and live the rest of her life in fantasies?" Endings are hypocritical. They don't signify the END of any story or thought. All they do signify that the author, poet, or philospher has chosen to stop thinking and put their pencil/book/mind away for awhile. After that their idea is free to be continued by the nextreader, who can write their own ending. Depending on how far the depths to which their mercies plunge, they can tear the idea apart, they can add to it, or they can leave it alone. The hardest step is determining where the ending should fall.