A Conversation with Mr Campbell

Joseph, I said, I think you've got this bit wrong.

Or maybe it was your mate, Brendan, 

the way he restated it. Be that as it may ...

I'm not arguing with you about all that Heroic 

Journey stuff, you know we all love that –

it's not even a matter of believing in it as such;

it's so appealing, everyone just took it on,

decided to wear it and swore that it fit (one size 

fits all – perhaps with a bit of twisting and tugging, 

but anyway good enough). No, it isn't that, it's 

this other thing, about the penultimate moment

of a journey – the second-last kiss, or whatever –

being the very best bit. Oh, you make a good case.

It all sounds positively exhilarating, the way 

you tell it, and for a minute there I didn't even

question if it were so – until I was invited

to write a poem in support of this proposition.

Well! That soon sorted me out. I mean, really?

You think getting ready to step off the plane is better 

than that moment when you're through Customs 

(finally) and walk out into a brand-new country? 

And as for second-last kisses, they were precious

of course, like the first, and the third, and the seventeenth,

and the five hundredth, and so on and so on, and all....

But you remember the last. I remember the last.

And the final words, and the final smile, or tear,

and the sight of him walking away that very last time, 

even if I didn't know then that it was the last time. 

And the times I did know, when he and she and they, 

one by one, individually, took that last breath.

And then I shut up, and Joseph, too, kept quiet 

(as the grave – being dead, after all). 

At 'imaginary garden with real toads' for day 29 of April Poetry Month, Penultimatums, Brendan MacOdrum invites us to consider a tale of St Brendan and some words of Joseph Campbell in support of the idea that penultimate moments are often the richest. 

Here is an earlier, very different response to the same prompt.