Crystal goblets that can ring
have a final song they sing;
tinkling sounds of shattered glass
quickly shriek and quickly pass.
Shards now swept into a mound
make no music; only sound.
Some who muse when dinner’s done
let a moistened finger run
round a lip that once held wine,
not a lip that pressed to mine.
Made with breath instead of hands,
they revert to primal sands.
Air remains, and somewhere flame,
wilderness from which they came.
John J. Brugaletta is the first member of his family to finish high school and then three degrees from universities. He is now professor emeritus at California State University, Fullerton, where he edited South Coast Poetry Journal for ten years. He lives with his wife on the redwood coast of California.