After all the times we’ve said goodbye (Haiku sequence)

 

            1

 

Three weeks: we haven’t

Seen so much of you for years

But now it must end.

 

Last morning: dropping

you off at the train station:

we hope you don’t break!

 

Little suitcase rattling

Behind, you roll away on

the balls of your feet.

 

From the car we watch

between gray cement columns

as you disappear.

 

Driving away, I’m

almost blinded by tears I

cannot drive away.

 

 

            2

 

So many goodbyes,

more than thirty years; why does

this one hurt so much?

 

Like after two years

when you finally made it

to kindergarten.

 

You don’t fight, you don’t

protest; you just turn and

walk bravely away.

 

Why does it always

feel like I’m the one leaving,

and not you somehow?

 

            3

 

There’s melodrama

to this leaving, feeling I

may not see you again.

 

A part of me won’t

let go of you, so I can

hold on to myself.

 

Like saying goodbye

to you is hard because it’s

goodbye to me too.

 

 

            4

 

But more than that I

want to see you free, flying

out across the sky.

 

I imagine your

migration, the worlds you find

beyond my end.

 

To end, a blessing:

do good, take our love with you,

enjoy the journey.

 

                                                -Love, Dad, 10-17 Jan 2022, Pleasanton

 

Note: Saying goodbye again to Kenneth this year reminded me of the poem I'd written about a previous goodbye last year, so I'm taking this as an opportunity to belatedly post this piece.