• Skip to main content
  • Skip to main content
Choose which site to search.
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Logo University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Medicine and Meaning
  • UAMS Health
  • Jobs
  • Giving
  • About Us
    • Submission Guidelines
  • Issues
  • Fiction
  • Non-fiction
  • Poetry
  • Conversations
  • Images
  • 55-Word Stories
  • History of Medicine
  1. University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
  2. Medicine and Meaning
  3. Thresholds

Thresholds

By F. H. Thurmond

When they wheeled the gurney
where I lay half dying

through a cold dark corridor
toward luminescent light

I thought of thresholds—
intimations of mortality

in the undiscovered country
of lost dreams.

The end of the beginning
of the end of being

in one place then another
or none where the wind blows

across wasteland voids
of eternal Lethe

or the uncertain beat
of an open heart.

F. H. Thurmond is an author, filmmaker and musician from Little Rock. He currently teaches writing and literature at UA-Little Rock and UA-Pulaski Technical College

Posted on October 4, 2021

Filed Under: 4 - Poetry

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences LogoUniversity of Arkansas for Medical SciencesUniversity of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Mailing Address: 4301 West Markham Street, Little Rock, AR 72205
Phone: (501) 686-7000
  • Facebook
  • X
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Statement

© 2025 University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences