Do not tell me it is OK to leave.
Do not absolve me of my obligation,
Connection to this life.
Tell me to consider the best of times.
Our daughters dancing in the tidal pools of
Saint Augustine sunset.
The sparrow at Monument Valley.
I thought it was The ghost of my brother (maybe)
Come to forgive me.
I wish to savor and linger,
Tarry in a meandering way,
A stream clinging to the earth
As it wanders through the carven rock of its bed
Always down, down, down,
To the unfathomable sea.
I hold tight to what I love and cherish.
I think of your hair
Golden silk laughing in the sun.
I think of our children so busy with their youth,
The beginnings really are the best.
I think of the arc of the
Glooming sunrise morning.
It is then I think of all that has been given
To me unasked for and I am glad.
So do not give me freedom to leave.
Do not comfort me with goodbyes.
Bear the burden of my life
While my strength wanes and falters.
Tell me you love me
And will hold to me
Until I depart of my own
Until I am lost entirely to myself
And float on the wind like
Gray ashen smoke rising from the last
Dying
Embers
Of
Holy
Incense.