In my Blackwood world, the creation myth (which is another poem here: Blade of Dawn) involves the first dawn being literally cut from the darkness. And in that world in Albion they speak of life being woven. So death is the final cut, the complete tapestry for this world looking on to the next.

Drops of red at cut of day
Washing hope and life away.
Quiet strains of passing song
Carry the weary soul along.

Woven the life of hope and steel.
Woven the life through woe and weal.
Woven with threads of family strong.
Woven the path they built along.

Life closes in on the final cut
And bears its witness at the door now shut:
Honor forged through days of pain,
Labors made through loss and gain.

Death comes at last with dagger sharp
To cut the threads and bind the warp.
A final weave the life will show
Made thread by thread the pattern grows.

Do not fear the sword of death
When shuddering life bears the cleft.
The final cut of life sustained
Binds tight the threads so richly gained.

Final Cut copyright © Heather Strickler 2026 all rights reserved.