Saying
Goodbye
John Hicks late wife Tolly on train
Two poems by John Hicks
Holding Ground
During breakfast this morning a young hummingbird hovers at your side of the window. Must be looking for your hibiscus-flowered shirt.
The Mormon Tea and rosemary are flowering with bees and spring. I’ll bring you sprigs today for the kitchen window vase.
And look: that panel of light has begun reflecting from our window into the curve of the garden wall again.
When I went out this morning, I noticed how the dark of the juniper was giving depth to the sky.
There’s a rabbit I haven’t seen before, crossing the sand near the road with that strange rocking horse motion they make. Yesterday I saw the horse tracks outside the wall are fading in this wind.
So much of a relationship becomes muscle memory: like finding light switches in the dark or reaching for you across the bed. Just now, I sorted out my feet under the table to avoid disturbing yours. I still say us.
As you asked, I’ve been going through our old photos. Fifty-two years. I have your profile on my desk, the one I took on the train back from our honeymoon on Penang. No one could be as brave as you, leaving family to fly alone half-way around the world to marry. Poets like to mix major events, like the latest pictures from Hubble, with their everydays. I cannot.
You insisted on this cancer treatment for me knowing there was no cure for you. As you were being overcome by your faulty immune system, mine was medically suppressed for treatment. When they turned off your machines that daybreak, the guilt that climbed my shoulders pressed down on my neck, wrapped around my feet.
There are different silences: humid daybreak on our lane in Bangkok; midday sun on the Outer Banks; snowfall on that dirt road in Leesburg; this empty chair. Your Christmas present remains in my closet.
Now, with each notification, each official form, each signature passed under a glass partition, you slip away.
A small lizard just jumped up on the yellow olla where I planted your lavender for bees and hummingbirds. We’re motionless.
First published in Verse-Virtual
Two poems by John Hicks
Holding Ground
During breakfast this morning a young hummingbird hovers at your side of the window. Must be looking for your hibiscus-flowered shirt.
The Mormon Tea and rosemary are flowering with bees and spring. I’ll bring you sprigs today for the kitchen window vase.
And look: that panel of light has begun reflecting from our window into the curve of the garden wall again.
When I went out this morning, I noticed how the dark of the juniper was giving depth to the sky.
There’s a rabbit I haven’t seen before, crossing the sand near the road with that strange rocking horse motion they make. Yesterday I saw the horse tracks outside the wall are fading in this wind.
So much of a relationship becomes muscle memory: like finding light switches in the dark or reaching for you across the bed. Just now, I sorted out my feet under the table to avoid disturbing yours. I still say us.
As you asked, I’ve been going through our old photos. Fifty-two years. I have your profile on my desk, the one I took on the train back from our honeymoon on Penang. No one could be as brave as you, leaving family to fly alone half-way around the world to marry. Poets like to mix major events, like the latest pictures from Hubble, with their everydays. I cannot.
You insisted on this cancer treatment for me knowing there was no cure for you. As you were being overcome by your faulty immune system, mine was medically suppressed for treatment. When they turned off your machines that daybreak, the guilt that climbed my shoulders pressed down on my neck, wrapped around my feet.
There are different silences: humid daybreak on our lane in Bangkok; midday sun on the Outer Banks; snowfall on that dirt road in Leesburg; this empty chair. Your Christmas present remains in my closet.
Now, with each notification, each official form, each signature passed under a glass partition, you slip away.
A small lizard just jumped up on the yellow olla where I planted your lavender for bees and hummingbirds. We’re motionless.
First published in Verse-Virtual
Another Clear Morning
Don’t you like how morning draws
roof’s shadow back from the garden,
how it gives us another clear day,
another slow squirm into spring.
The Mormon Tea is blooming.
I’ll get you sprigs for the kitchen.
My pencil hovers above my To Do list,
protecting us from the unknown.
A small lizard just raised up for a drink
at the water dish under the hawthorn.
I like where you’re going with
your painting of an Italian town.
Lately, steam from my cup
has been obscuring your face.
The box with your ashes is
in your chair across from me,.
I worry I’m holding you back
from whatever follows this life;
that this grief is selfish.
Not So Close to the Cemetery by Jacqueline Jules
In the first years after,
I was glad we lived so close
to the cemetery. I could visit
before a trip to the grocery
or after the dentist.
It was comfortable to come by
and read your name in bronze.
Imagine you happy
in a fresh existence, free from
the cruel pain of your last two years.
Sometimes, I felt your presence
in the clouds, watching me fuss
over your grave, yanking errant weeds.
And I wondered if you approved. Or if you thought
I should be doing something else, like signing the papers
on a new house. By the water. Three hundred miles away.
Which I did just yesterday. Soon,
I won’t be living so close to the cemetery.
A choice I think would please you.
First appeared in Verse-Virtual
Bye, Mum by Rose Mary Boehm
You took off, left behind your memories.
My brain’s gone off orbit.
Know what? As far as memories go
I like yours better.
Sitting on a pile of clothes; can’t find my socks.
Do you know what drugs do to your self?
Know what? As far as selves go
I like yours better.
The big empty house lives, whispers and threatens.
When I needed you, you lived your life, selfish cow.
Know what? As far as lives go
I like yours better.
It’s alright now. No it’s not.
You took off. And so did I.
Know what? As far as takeoffs go
I like yours better.
There was a time when it no longer hurt.
You took your CDs.
Know what? As far as music goes
I like yours better.
In the mornings the blue spiders of the early hours
crawl over me.
And it’s all over now.
Know what? As far as endings go,
I like mine better.
Farewell, My Dear One by Jayne Jaudon Ferrer
You wouldn’t like it,
I know,
but I’ve done it for
too many years.
So, taking advantage
of your slumbering senses,
I kiss your forehead,
brush the hair from your brow,
and whisper in your ear
the mantra that’s been yours
since birth:
“I love you! I think you’re wonderful!
I’m so glad you’re my son!”
From those first few nights when
I tiptoed in, holding my breath
to listen for yours,
through nights when you slept,
exhausted,
first from play,
then from living, then
loving.
Now, you lay here
sprawled and tall,
a man’s lean, hard body
below my little boy’s
soft, sweet face.
Tomorrow, someone else will wake
and kiss you in the night.
So just this once,
I bend and kiss you
twice.
From A Mother of Sons (Loyola Press)
Two poems by Sharon Waller Knutson
When They Leave Without Saying Goodbye
Don’t take me to the hospital. Let me die
at home, my father says. He gets his wish.
I am asleep in my bed across town when
he stops breathing in his bed at the age
of 81, a shock because his mother lives
to be 97, his father 85 and his sister 92
I’m not going to a nursing home, my mother
says. Nine years after my father’s death,
she dies at 89 in a hospital the night before
she is being admitted to a nursing home
after surgery for a broken leg following a fall
while I am waiting at my home in Tucson
to fly to Idaho to care for her in her home.
Tests show she is in remission from cancer
for the third time in eight years.
My father is a former teacher, bookstore owner
and rodeo cowboy, so the funeral home
is packed and four of his classmates
all in their eighties carry his casket.
My mother is a housewife and mother
and a private person so the attendance
at her graveside service is sparse. The two guys
who watch football with her and find
her on the floor carry her coffin
and as her body is laid to rest
next to my father I say goodbye to both parents.
Saying Goodbye to My In-laws
As soon as hospice removed
the oxygen tube my father-
in-law started moving
and talking slowly, shutting
down like a mechanical man.
He could hardly speak but he
wanted to say goodbye. A religious
man at 95, he was close to God
and had knowledge we didn’t.
I won’t be here tomorrow, he said.
I’m going there. He pointed
to a crack in the corner of the ceiling.
He disappeared in the night after
my husband and I said our goodbyes
but my mother-in-law, his wife
of 69 years cowered in the kitchen
fear in her eyes as we coaxed her
out to kiss him goodbye. She was
cloaked in the same cloth of denial
when it was her turn to go eight
years later a week after her 98th
birthday when she gasped,
I don’t know what’s happening
to me. I’m seeing all these dead
people. We thought we had
time to say goodbye but we didn’t.
She closed her eyes and she was gone.
Aubade to Our Son by Judith Waller Carroll
The wash of his headlights has faded.
Only the yellow glow of the porch light
as we stand in the shadowy interlude
between darkness and day.
He is off to his new life, we are left to ours.
We stare at the empty road as if our looking
will make his going easier
or bring him back again.
From Walking in Early September
When a Cat Dies by Shelly Blankman
Stripe joined our clowder of cats when he was two.
Shy at first, he’d settle in my arms until he got used
to the scents and sounds of the home that was now his,
Stripe’s body felt warm as he nestled in my arms. As I
stroked him, my fingertips would sink into his thick fur,
as soft and furry as plush. He was a gray tabby painted
perfectly with symmetrical stripes that he let me count
every evening as he lay on my lap, his large amber eyes
absorbing every corner of his new world, free of danger
and full of love. He’d lick my hand with his raspy tongue
as I counted his stripes. And then came the belly rubs.
He’d trained me well, staring at me as I made space
for him to lie on my side and cradle him. He’d wrap two
paws around my neck like a boa and two stretched across
my chest, claws ready to pin me in position should I try
to escape. I never could escape his purr of contentment.
His gentle snore would bring me into his world and\provide
peace and healing in mine. Over time, he became an alpha
cat, stealing food from the others and chasing them when all
he needed was to be held. He didn’t want belly rubs or his stripes
counted. We thought our vet could advise us. We expected
a prescription for anxiety. What we got was a diagnosis of cancer.
Our precious Stripe was dying. He knew before we did. As we
waited for the x-ray results, he tried desperately to paw his way
out of the exam room, I buried my head in his fur. I’m sorry, sweetie.
I’m sorry was all I could say. I regret now adding fear to his angst.
Our house feels eerily empty since he’s been gone. No chasing or
stealing of food. No loud meowing or cursing. No belly rubs.
We’d ordered a new cat tree because he loved the old one so much
that he shredded it until it looked like it had been attacked by an ax.
The cat tree arrived the day he died.
Stripe joined our clowder of cats when he was two.
Shy at first, he’d settle in my arms until he got used
to the scents and sounds of the home that was now his,
Stripe’s body felt warm as he nestled in my arms. As I
stroked him, my fingertips would sink into his thick fur,
as soft and furry as plush. He was a gray tabby painted
perfectly with symmetrical stripes that he let me count
every evening as he lay on my lap, his large amber eyes
absorbing every corner of his new world, free of danger
and full of love. He’d lick my hand with his raspy tongue
as I counted his stripes. And then came the belly rubs.
He’d trained me well, staring at me as I made space
for him to lie on my side and cradle him. He’d wrap two
paws around my neck like a boa and two stretched across
my chest, claws ready to pin me in position should I try
to escape. I never could escape his purr of contentment.
His gentle snore would bring me into his world and\provide
peace and healing in mine. Over time, he became an alpha
cat, stealing food from the others and chasing them when all
he needed was to be held. He didn’t want belly rubs or his stripes
counted. We thought our vet could advise us. We expected
a prescription for anxiety. What we got was a diagnosis of cancer.
Our precious Stripe was dying. He knew before we did. As we
waited for the x-ray results, he tried desperately to paw his way
out of the exam room, I buried my head in his fur. I’m sorry, sweetie.
I’m sorry was all I could say. I regret now adding fear to his angst.
Our house feels eerily empty since he’s been gone. No chasing or
stealing of food. No loud meowing or cursing. No belly rubs.
We’d ordered a new cat tree because he loved the old one so much
that he shredded it until it looked like it had been attacked by an ax.
The cat tree arrived the day he died.
Jon Blankman hugs his beloved Stripe
Blonde by Joe Cottonwood
She went out easy.
With previous dogs, there came
a moment of spiritual shudder,
sometimes a visible struggle.
Not here. Under my touch
I feel the chest rise, fall, rise.
Fall.
And rise no more.
Without a sound the heart rests.
A border crossed,
as if she welcomed the end
of cancer’s grip.
I tuck dog legs against dog body.
They are immediately
different, dead weight
utterly unlike a living limb.
Her eyes remain half open
seeming half-alert in death
as she so often slept.
Still she is warm and has
that marvelous Dakota fur,
the only blonde
I’ve ever loved.
Red Eft Review
She went out easy.
With previous dogs, there came
a moment of spiritual shudder,
sometimes a visible struggle.
Not here. Under my touch
I feel the chest rise, fall, rise.
Fall.
And rise no more.
Without a sound the heart rests.
A border crossed,
as if she welcomed the end
of cancer’s grip.
I tuck dog legs against dog body.
They are immediately
different, dead weight
utterly unlike a living limb.
Her eyes remain half open
seeming half-alert in death
as she so often slept.
Still she is warm and has
that marvelous Dakota fur,
the only blonde
I’ve ever loved.
Red Eft Review
All Came to Say Good-Bye by Joan Leotta
In that frantic last week of packing,
realizing I had saved too many papers, books,
but still stuffing them into boxes for the movers,
moments of respite came from the parade of good-byes
arriving at the windows, across the lawn, and at our door.
All the various beings, benign, lively, lovely,
creatures who welcomed us to our North Carolina home
came to bid farewell, as we made ready to move
after twenty years with them.
Egrets, herons, ibis –all made forays to our pond
nodding at me,(or so it seemed), as they dipped beaks
into our pond’s still waters or moved
in lines across the open lot next door,
grooming it free from tiny bugs.
Then the cardinals, male and female, who
nest among our azalea and camelia bushes,
came to perch on our wax myrtle, chirped
a last good by—even posing for pictures.
Blue jay dropped a feather and even bluebird
Dropped a tiny pinfeather on the driveway
as farewell gifts.
Crows cawed at me from the dead tree two lots down
as eagle regally watched it all, pretending
to ignore the doings of common folk.
[pretending he was only nearby to wait
for the river to offer prey.
At last the lizards began to zip along
on our front porch, all of the diverse types,
in a succession of soundless farewells.
On the day before we were to leave,
a frog, the kind that kept me awake
on many a spring and summer eve,
stuck himself to the front door frame;
waited there until I noticed him and said goodbye
admitting with a whisper that I would miss his green
loveliness and even the lilt of his reverse lullaby.
Then joining the parade of local creatures,
our human neighbors, writer friends, and others
reached out, in person, by email, by message,
to say that they would miss us too.
To all I gave the same reply:
“Even as I look forward to returning to Virginia
to be nearer to our beloved daughter,
I will still love you all and miss you, each and every one,”
My good-bye wish for you: “Fare well”
Saying Goodbye by Rachael Ikins
What bothers me;
not lengthening darkness,
cooler Fall temperatures, it is the elderly bees.
How they cling to red and yellow dahlias near
my front door
as rain drenches their fur,
as nights fall earlier
and colder.
Stunned immobile by late afternoon,
too chilled to fly to the hive, they splay
across flowers like black hieroglyphs.
Frost licked a few full-moon night’s edges.
I haven’t pulled the dahlia bulbs because
of the bees. Days sun warms, they struggle
again to sluggish work.
Some November morning when I see my breath,
everything edged in white crunches beneath my boots
I will find them, fur frosted as if powdered decoration,
hearts frozen to flower petals until the sun’s touch,
when all falls limp
into Earth’s brown arms.
Two poems by j.lewis
goodbye sounds like
when you are the passenger
no dash-mount panic handle
car and driver
taking the corner hard
hearing tires complain
in their own peculiar voice
shouting goodbye to pavement
soon to be abandoned
stomach tightens
and a frightened gasp
betrays you to the one
who grips your heart
hard like the steering wheel
and then
to emphasize the ride is over
raises both hands
and lets you go
the screeching screaming warning
of impending separation
takes so very long
to fade away
first published in Verse-Virtual
Before I Go
Every line must end correctly here,
Every verb be in a perfect tense.
It's been so long since I last read your voice
And if I had my way, my simple choice
Would be to trim the distance (too immense)
Between us, make you miles and miles more near.
And then, come autumn wind or winter snow,
I'd see you wave and smile before I go.
first appeared in a clear day in October
In that frantic last week of packing,
realizing I had saved too many papers, books,
but still stuffing them into boxes for the movers,
moments of respite came from the parade of good-byes
arriving at the windows, across the lawn, and at our door.
All the various beings, benign, lively, lovely,
creatures who welcomed us to our North Carolina home
came to bid farewell, as we made ready to move
after twenty years with them.
Egrets, herons, ibis –all made forays to our pond
nodding at me,(or so it seemed), as they dipped beaks
into our pond’s still waters or moved
in lines across the open lot next door,
grooming it free from tiny bugs.
Then the cardinals, male and female, who
nest among our azalea and camelia bushes,
came to perch on our wax myrtle, chirped
a last good by—even posing for pictures.
Blue jay dropped a feather and even bluebird
Dropped a tiny pinfeather on the driveway
as farewell gifts.
Crows cawed at me from the dead tree two lots down
as eagle regally watched it all, pretending
to ignore the doings of common folk.
[pretending he was only nearby to wait
for the river to offer prey.
At last the lizards began to zip along
on our front porch, all of the diverse types,
in a succession of soundless farewells.
On the day before we were to leave,
a frog, the kind that kept me awake
on many a spring and summer eve,
stuck himself to the front door frame;
waited there until I noticed him and said goodbye
admitting with a whisper that I would miss his green
loveliness and even the lilt of his reverse lullaby.
Then joining the parade of local creatures,
our human neighbors, writer friends, and others
reached out, in person, by email, by message,
to say that they would miss us too.
To all I gave the same reply:
“Even as I look forward to returning to Virginia
to be nearer to our beloved daughter,
I will still love you all and miss you, each and every one,”
My good-bye wish for you: “Fare well”
Saying Goodbye by Rachael Ikins
What bothers me;
not lengthening darkness,
cooler Fall temperatures, it is the elderly bees.
How they cling to red and yellow dahlias near
my front door
as rain drenches their fur,
as nights fall earlier
and colder.
Stunned immobile by late afternoon,
too chilled to fly to the hive, they splay
across flowers like black hieroglyphs.
Frost licked a few full-moon night’s edges.
I haven’t pulled the dahlia bulbs because
of the bees. Days sun warms, they struggle
again to sluggish work.
Some November morning when I see my breath,
everything edged in white crunches beneath my boots
I will find them, fur frosted as if powdered decoration,
hearts frozen to flower petals until the sun’s touch,
when all falls limp
into Earth’s brown arms.
Two poems by j.lewis
goodbye sounds like
when you are the passenger
no dash-mount panic handle
car and driver
taking the corner hard
hearing tires complain
in their own peculiar voice
shouting goodbye to pavement
soon to be abandoned
stomach tightens
and a frightened gasp
betrays you to the one
who grips your heart
hard like the steering wheel
and then
to emphasize the ride is over
raises both hands
and lets you go
the screeching screaming warning
of impending separation
takes so very long
to fade away
first published in Verse-Virtual
Before I Go
Every line must end correctly here,
Every verb be in a perfect tense.
It's been so long since I last read your voice
And if I had my way, my simple choice
Would be to trim the distance (too immense)
Between us, make you miles and miles more near.
And then, come autumn wind or winter snow,
I'd see you wave and smile before I go.
first appeared in a clear day in October
Two poems by Lorraine Caputo
TRAVERSING THE NIGHT
Through this gathering dusk I traverse,
the mountains darkening,
the clouds in heaps of greys,
colors of sunset lost to the twilight,
chickens already roosted in a tree
behind a raw adobe home,
a window golden with light within.
I am slipping away in the coming night,
leaving behind that village, its clouds
swirling around peaks, through valleys,
around ancient, silent ruins.
A silence within –
no tears, no farewells –
only the golden light
of these words bubbling, welling.
& into the completed night I traverse,
my road overhung with rock bluffs
fracturing beneath jungle,
beneath bromeliads, beneath
orchids, beneath the tangled
tendrils of some vine
swaying in the chill.
First appeaqred in Peacock Journal
A SECOND FAREWELL
In an old Soviet prop plane we
say our slow farewell.
Over this island,
I watch the rivers lazily meander
through the plans & seep
into the shallow green Straits of Florida
sinking into deeper blues off in the distance.
Inlets filigree the coast.
Roads wind across those flatlands,
into villages & past
red plowed farm fields
& green sugar cane.
Cut-cornered baseball diamonds
facet the land.
Over crumpled mountains heavily forested
shadowed by lone clouds.
& now bleached golds & rust patches spread below.
An orchard evenly polka-dots
one shore of a lacy lake.
The last broad arm of treed land stretches
into the bright turquoise sea.
I look out the round window
longing to reach towards you
& embrace you,
to once more hold you tight to my chest
& not let go …
Our time together passed like
your softly rolling Caribbean,
Nights became days
in your tropical energy.
I won’t say farewell.
I know shall return –
again –
someday … algún día
That land falls further behind …
someday
Solid blue ocean below …
someday
Cotton clouds drift below …
algún día
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