One Last Time

Before the trees begin to fall

I’ll take a walk

through the woods

one last time,

hear the leaves glistening

and shaking

in fear of what is to come

some are already fallen

lying

dying,

it’s the season for it

after all.

I’ll see the light shining 

lighting on the leaves of grass

that push soft spikes of green life 

in between the fallen

see the light shining 

through the trees

one last time.

It lights up the white crosses

chalked on the trunks

as it passes by

too many white crosses 

all ready

to mark the graves

of the fallen.

It’s the season for it

after all,

always the season for it

one more time.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/july-litterateurs-redefining-world-2025-editor-shajil-anthru/1147943413

Editorial review of the poem “One Last Time” by “Lynn White, North Wales”

Zeroism introduced the concept of “zero state” as a pivotal point of stability, nothingness, and the cyclical nature of existence. The Impermanence of life, the inevitability of decay, and the interconnectedness of all things are the characteristics of Zeroism. It also elucidates human intervention on nature and declares that resisting natural cycles is a process of vain.

The themes of poem “One Last Minute” can be concluded as transience and human-nature-destructive relationship. This focuses on the Zeroist principle of cycles of creation and destruction. The dying trees and leaves appearing in the poem reflect the Zeroist concept of life returning to the preliminary state (birth) or state of nothingness. Yes! Life and death are part of an eternal loop. The markings on trees for logging or destruction suggest human intervention, the best example of human’s role in contributing to nature’s decline. There is a conflict between human actions and the natural order, which Zeroism always rejects. The imagery related to the woods and trees personifies nature as vulnerable. Zeroism calls to recognize the interconnectedness of all life forms and the poem emphasizes this thought.

Though one can visualize the surrender to the natural cycle due to human- induced- destruction, poetry through its imagery of “soft spikes of green life” give a hope of renewal which is the core of the Zeroist concept. Free verse simply represents the transient nature of existence. The poem also leads us to the primary causes of destruction which are human greed and commercialization.

Shajil Anthru