Trapper Markelz – Final Wishes

Massachusetts poet Trapper Markelz paints a picture of grief and rest in the grey quiet of his poem “Final Wishes”. Line after line, Trapper reveals the details of a last journey to a final resting place, and we’re witness to the passing scenes as though we watch from the Toyota, and we watch the narrator and his burden of ashes from the perspective of a dead porcupine on the roadside. This isn’t a work of stillness, however, as we see the world continue to turn. Life continues to move, even in the company of death.

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Final Wishes

Their chariot is a navy Toyota sulking west
on I-90 at 70 miles per hour, under and over
hand-crafted concrete passes. We stop
at McDonald’s, we stop for 87 octane gasoline,
a window washing, another flask of iced coffee
to re-open flooded irises. Two boxes ride
in a laundry basket lined with gray towels
in the back seat, six pounds of gray ash
beneath gray sky on gray roads, gray air
from a cracked window flushing ghosts
from our portable graveyard.
At the intersection of I-80, birds rise
in the backdraft of a long-range UPS trucker
coughing gray smoke from twin diesel stacks
during an engine break on an exit ramp.
A Maryland license plate shines orange
in the dusk. A roadkill porcupine
with one good yellow eye watches our chariot
glide by, gilded in blurry traffic light. It’s quiet
at the Utica burying ground, a few hands held,
a few holy prayers recited—a pair ground down
by final miles and later years
——————————————––another pair beloved.

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Read On: Related Posts

• William Stafford’s Looking Across the River
• Gurdjieff and The Two Rivers
• Behind Me – dips Eternity – Emily Dickinson
• Pamela Wax – Capricorn Loses His Star
• Barry Casey – Wait Here