The finial was the ornament on top of the post. A carved ball or acorn or spear point that sat on the peak of the fence or the top of the newel post or the tip of the gable. The finial was the building's punctuation. Every sentence needs a period and every post needs a finial. The finial said this is the top. This is where the structure ends and the sky begins.

The finial was turned on a lathe. A man held a block of wood against a spinning blade and shaped it with his hands and in ten minutes the block was an acorn. The lathe was the first machine that made something beautiful. The acorn went on top of the post and the post went on top of the railing and the railing went around the porch and the porch said somebody lives here who knows how things should end. The porch without a finial is a sentence without a period. It trails off.

The iron finial was a spear. Wrought iron fences in front of brownstones on the West Side had spear-point finials that said do not climb this fence. The spear was decorative and the spear was a warning and in 1870 those two things were the same thing. A boy in the neighborhood got his pants caught on a finial climbing over and hung there until his mother came. The finial held him like a teacher holds a student. By the collar.

The finial collected weather. Snow sat on a finial like a hat. Rain ran down the finial and traced the carving and the carving channeled the water to the post and the post channeled it to the ground. The finial was a tiny roof on top of the post protecting the end grain from the rain. The finial was practical and beautiful and nobody had to choose between those two words because the finial did not know they were different words.

They stopped putting finials on things. The modern fence post has a flat cap or nothing at all. A flat cap is a shrug. The finial was an opinion. The flat cap says I am a post. The finial said I am a post and I am finished and I am worth looking at. The building used to end with a flourish. Now the building ends with a cut. The difference between a bow and walking offstage.

See also: Newel Post, Front Gate