On the last day for the last day of the world
HERMAN SUTTER
April 13, 2020
the leaves were green
and a breeze stirred the sunlit shadows.
A single brown leaf dropped
from somewhere high
only to stop
midair
dangling,
glistening as it turned, catching
the light and the shade.
It hung there as if a sign
that the first thing to go
would be gravity,
but then I realized
it must be caught in a web
now broken.
On the last day before
the last day of the world
a spider rested, its work finally done.
Yet even now it descended,
gathering broken strands,
to begin again.
HERMAN SUTTER is the author of The World Before Grace (Wings Press) and a reviewer for Library Journal. His poetry has appeared in: Touchstone, Saint Anthony Messenger, Ekphrastic Review, Benedict XVI Institute, and By the Light of a Neon Moon (Madville, 2019). He received the Innisfree prize for poetry.
