I Bid Farewell,
With “best wishes”; “Good lucks”; “You will be fines”.
The subject of memory, the consequence of time.
To have grown up across the world, heartstrings tugged afar.
Heartwrought pacts written in greetings of morn,
that fade into dusk and drift into muddy tar.
But today I pledge and today I honor,
the moments spent, the shared pains.
These I somberly relish,
not knowing the paths b’crossed again.
Inked as short inscriptions
into the annals of the mind.
Old tales whispered from neural crevasses
that none will ever find.
These I scrawl on sepia parchment
with a heart under reticent duress.
Succinct as it should be.
Not a second more and not a moment less.
Til we meet again at that wedding or funeral.
‘Tis hard to wish for the next
serendipitous travel.
Commentary: on meeting a really old school friend, who I was very unlikely to meet again. Expresses a general sombreness of having close friends living abroad, and the brevity of reconnecting