Endings - Poem #21

Of all the places I have been
and all the paths that I have walked
there are many I know
I will never walk again.

Such is the nature of things;
the omnipotent film maker has made the cuts,
certain scenes are over, the story line moving on
inevitably toward the end.

There is a last time for everything;
how often do we casually say goodbye
not knowing that their part in our play is done
well before the second act?

Among all the memories
I am sure there are some
lost forever, never to be recalled
the door closed, never to be reopened.

There is a book I will never read
a place I will never visit
lips I kissed, women I loved
I will never love again

for their part in the play was brief,
or never written in
or left on the cutting room floor
of forgotten memory.

And in the background sound track
the murmurs in the crowd;
those extras whose paths I crossed
some of whom perhaps once loved
but have now forgotten me.

.