Closing balance

There finally remain but smallish things
and smallish words, a gesture, a half-look,
the memories of mishaps that life brings
or of a friend too early brought to book,

nothing remains but that grey bathing strand
without a setting sun, there just remain
a train you missed, a broken window pane,
a hand-carved animal from some strange land,

that shell for you which once a girl had found,
there finally remains … And all that blurred
and mediocre, however much your mind

might wangle it – just save yourself the blather,
don’t make the mess of life still more absurd!
For that was it. There will not be another.