Last Days

I sat on the beach yesterday with some friends, watching them throw pebbles in the water and dance across a big log and up a rocky ledge. I flipped through Devotion, a book of Mary Oliver poems that has lived close at hand since I got it. I usually read this book aimlessly, flipping open to a random page and reading– and had thought that I’d read most of the poems inside. Yesterday though, I started in the index and saw for the first time “Last Days” listed between “Lamps, The,” and “Last night.” I leave Bellingham for around a year on Friday. The Last Days are right now, and every mundane moment is steeped in an undeniable sacredness that these are the last moments for awhile in this room, at this counter, hearing those friends’ laughter, watching the sun sink below those islands, holding this hand. Mary Oliver speaks of change– of things whirling away in a breeze, death– that which signifies change, and of a moment of determination in the rebirth– or second chance– that follows.

As my time in Bellingham with these friends and loved ones and trees and waters “boils back into substance and hue,” I’m keeping in mind that an ending is also always a beginning, and that these times that are growing fewer as the hours spin by will build upon the way I enter the Next Days. I’m filling my days with the mundane: slow mornings, greeting roommates home from work, sunsets, sitting in the front yard. And I’m watching them become full of enchantment for the way they will fade into the background as this next adventure begins.