If This is My Final Destination

 Response to http://trailbrazin.blogspot.com/2016/05/invitation-to-write-12.html

If This is My Final Destination

(Inspired by Nick Flynn’s “If This is Your Final Destination’)

by Helen Sadler

If this is my final destination

what did it all mean?

That I spent the last hours of my life

watching a pink sunrise behind purple clouds.

I spent the last night not in my own bed.

My husband is not near me.

If this is the end, I spent it writing with

friends, finding images of birds and beach,

randomly creating poems, imagining

my unlived life.

If this is my last morning,

I was blessed to see Brown Pelicans flying

in formation

and to read what I wrote a year ago

about B.B. King and the “Key to the Highway”

Don’t I always have that key?

Why do I only know that now –

                                            on the last day?

If this is my last stop on the Universal Express,

I sat in the moment reading Nick Flynn’s poetry

and writing my own.

I listened to strangers talking on the balcony below

   while waiting for their breakfast in the microwave.

Even from the 12^th floor perch, I could

hear the waves slapping the beach

once a boater sped by:

a repetitive sound like a song,

a “Mystery Train” of nature.

Then quiet again.

Now the sun – stunning orange popsicle glowing neon

pops out of the plush purple clouds

"Surprise!

I was here all along,

while you watched the pelicans,

and listened to the waves,

and read Nick and eavesdropped on strangers.

The world was still turning.

"And you kept on writing,

heading toward your final destination."

hms  5/15/16