Four Last Songs Poem by C Richard Miles

And if they said to me I could just write Four
Last songs, composed like Richard Strauss,
What would this other Richard score?

The question is almost too hard to face:
How can one cram my half-life’s span
Of stark experience into so small a space

And the universe of yet-unfulfilled dreams?
I could ask if they could grant me
Some more time to organise my schemes

But I am sure that they would say
There is no time for recollection, none
Indeed for deep reflection. I only may

Scribble down that which is there
Inside my head and so have done with it.
How can they be unfeeling and unfair?

But, wait a bit, I might reply to them:
You only intimated that there were
Yet left to me a mere quartet of songs to pen;

There was no mention of a time-limit
And, then again, no limitation on
The extent of stanza, length of lyric

That I need to stick to. So there it is:
I shall write four last songs but make
Each one of them last umpteen long eternities.

And so I shall begin, and start to chant a
Long, unfinished symphony of verse
With timeless tunes, an unrepeating mantra.

Four last songs? Yes, four last songs, that will
Last more than infinity. I haven’t even started yet
Upon the second stanza of the first one, still.