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“The last line should strike like a lover’s complaint.
You should never see it coming.
And you should never hear the end of it”
Susan Buffam – On last lines

It’s the first of the last month of our Roman calendar – an interesting paradox with some biblical overtones. Even so, December in the Northern hemisphere can bring on a sense of wintry weariness to many of us– the gardens are in stasis, some animals are hibernating, many birds have gone south, and the cold, dark days ahead will turn us inward to firelight and lamplight.

At the other end of a Northern winter though, Heide Erdrich looks with muted joy at the forthcoming changes in “Last Snow”:

“Dumped wet and momentary on a dull ground
that’s been clear but clearly sleeping, for days.
Last snow melts as it falls, piles up slush, runs in first light
making a music in the streets we wish we could keep.
Last snow. That’s what we’ll think for weeks to come.
Close sun sets up a glare that smarts like a good cry.
We could head north and north and never let this season go.
Stubborn beast, the body reads the past in the change of light,
knows the blow of grief in the time of trees’ tight-fisted leaves.
Stubborn calendar of bone. Last snow. Now it must always be so.”

Of course in the Southern Hemisphere, December brings Spring, a fresh outlook. Eliot’s “Little Gidding” touches on this watershed, as two-faced Janus:

“Last season’s fruit is eaten
And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail.
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.”

And last words is just what Alice Fulton combines in: “End Fetish: An Index Of Last Lines”

“a face stares back.
across the hostile centuries.
add a twist — delicious.
and never feel a thing.
commercial — added stretch to every gesture.
how it is made.
I almost admire it. I almost wrote despise.
I’d be all give. Let me put it like this==
in the nocturnal, recessed bed==
of nettles.
resembles the bird it will fly into…”

By now it is evident that the theme for this prompt is all about endings. End lines to be precise:

  1. – take the very last/final line from each of your most recent poems and re-write them as a poem
    – choose at least 12 poems (for this 12th month!)
    – keep each line intact, unadulterated
    – you may  add  preposition,  conjunction or change of tense  if it helps the flow
    – you may use enjambment to break a line
    – the lines do not have to follow date order
    OR
  2. – use  a Last lines index* of published poems (from a book or web link – Read a Little Poetry has one) or scour books of poetry for a poem’s very last line
    – choose at least 12 poems (for this 12th month!)
    – keep each line intact, unadulterated
    – you may add preposition, conjunction or change of tense, if it helps the flow
    – you may use enjambment to break a line
    – the lines do not have to follow the alphabetical order

 *N.B. Not to be confused with the more common  First Lines Index!

Once you have published your poem, add it to the Mr Linky below. Then go visiting other contributors as that is half the enjoyment of our dVerse gatherings.