… and in the end

Trains of poetry.

In my advanced years,
i have time in abundance;
an entire desert
of precious sand
pours ceaselessly
through the hourglass
of my existence.

And as my now-restricted
movement further constricts
my habitual referrals
to both calendar
and timepiece,
a new stillness softens
both industry and passion.

I continue to travel the world,
but now on trains of poetry
instead of shuttling between
airports, hotels,
must-see tourist sights,
and those few wild places
still beyond the well-worn trail.

But I re-create exotic scents
and memorable repasts
in my home kitchen,
while writing poetry and essays
in six languages
to old friends
and strangers not yet met.

And in that way,
my long life
of adventure-seeking and travel
keeps generating new journeys
through holographic memories,
and timeless excursions
beyond the reach of time…

even despite the occasional missed beat.

— Adam Donaldson Powell, 2026

____________________________

Epitaph

When the last light loosens
its hold on my name,
and the careful archives of self
begin to unthread—

let the speeches fall first,
their polished arguments dimming
like coins at the bottom of a well.
Let manifestos scatter into wind,
their urgency outlived by silence.

Lay down the books I never finished,
the canvases that strained toward meaning,
the photographs that tried to trap time
and found only its echo.

Even the questions—
those bright, insistent flames—
let them flicker out without answer.

For none of these will follow me
past the small, unmarked threshold
where titles loosen,
and every cleverness is gently refused.

What will remain—
if anything dares remain—
is simpler, and far less adorned:

the quiet gravity of hands held
without witness,
the unrecorded mercies,
the forgiveness given too late
but given still,

the times I chose to stay
when leaving was easier,
the fragile courage of opening
again, and again,
despite the evidence.

Measure me there—
not in the noise I made,
nor the shadows I chased into form,
but in the warmth I kept alive
between myself and another.

If I am to be written at all,
let it be in this brief line:

that I learned, imperfectly,
how to love—
and was, for a moment,
loved in return.

— Adam Donaldson Powell, 2026

… and in the end, politics, poetry, painting, photography and philosophy will mean very little to me. ultimately, the worth of my existence will be judged solely by how properly I have loved, and have been loved.