The Last Message

The dying’s last words. One’s last confession. The runaway. The soldier. The suicidal. The broken-hearted looking for an answer. The one who leaves on a journey never to return home.  Regardless of its cause or unpredictable nature, the last message bears always the great responsibility to convey a person’s whole world in a few words, a few sentences, or perhaps a few pages.

This made me think of the importance of words. Of their intensity and depth. Of their strength and their impact on our minds and hearts. Of their meaning and significance to the rest of the world. Of poets and poems. Of writers and artists. Of people. Of us. Of our (future) last massages and works as a mark we leave on the planet for next generation to come.

In this line of thoughts I’d like to share with you the last words of a few great people for they made me reminisce on a last message that I once wrote to someone who never answered back:

  • Brazilian poet Olavo Bilac 28 December 1918: “Give me coffee, I’m going to write”.
  • Portuguese poet and writer Fernando Pessoa 30 November 1935: “I know not what tomorrow will bring”.
  • Emily Dickinson 15 May 1886, who found poetry in the most common occurrences, said just before dying, “Let us go in; the fog is rising”.
  • The Buddhist nun known as Ryonen was a granddaughter of the famous Japanese warrior Shingen. When she knew her time had come to depart this world she wrote another poem:

Sixty-six times have these eyes beheld
the loveliness of Autumn…
Ask no more.
Only listen to the sound of the pines
when no wind stirs.

  • Oscar Wilde “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do”.
  • German philosopher Friedrich Hegel: “Only one man has ever understood me… and he didn’t understand me”.

Quote sources:

http://lossofsoul.com/LIFE_IS/Poems/last-words-famous-poets-en.htm, http://lossofsoul.com/DEATH/last-words-en.htm

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