Tonight,
we’ll laugh until tears streak our cheeks
and remember all those moments
that made this a special place.
But beneath the laughter
will be the melancholy knowing
that with these leavings
we are left to try to rebuild something new.
I suppose we’ll be okay,
but I can’t help but wish you’d stay.
.
.
.
(End of the school year. Staff leaves. New staff arrives. Some years it’s just so fabulously synergistic that it is particularly depressing to see the end).
The skies weep on the airport
bidding melancholy farewell
to the time of aggregation.
On my return drive, troubled skies glower,
containing their tears while
eagles, ospreys, and hawks wheel
on rising wind born of wistful anamnesis.
At home a beam of sun light
glows at my door, grateful
illumination:
recollecting joy.
.
.
It is always bittersweet on the last day of a gathering, as participants return home. Graduation celebration, weddings, funerals, conventions, conferences, camp. The greater the anticipation of the event, the more melancholy the ending.
I will treasure fond memories of Word on the Lake 2014. 43 hours of conference, anticipated for 572 days = 1.2 days of anticipation per hour of experience! 🙂
Sometimes, the ending remains a clear memory, while the middle disappears. Do you have any poignant endings that you hold in your heart?
Your limbs
spill from silken sheets
shimmering in the glimmer
of morning squeezing between
window slats,
striping you like a convict,
but I am your prisoner.
Your lips
curl as you murmur,
conversing with lovers
in your dreams,
Your hips
burrow deeply
on the rhythm of your sighs
and I long to lie beside you,
lingering in the light,
but as dawn drives day
so must I away.
.
.
An aubade is a French leaving poem. It’s the opposite of a serenade, and is the song of a lover leaving his beloved in the morning. I’d never heard of the form before, and on the same day, I discovered it by accident (when I looked up a French lingerie company by the name and the definition came up) I found an aubade in the WordPress poetry feed. Quite a coincidence! Here is my first one. I should add, that I am unlikely to ever write one from experience, since generally I’m going to bed at dawn, while my husband is getting up! 😉
Splashing in the bathroom
awakens her
to a sorrowful knowing.
Her eyes are closed against it.
His baggage rustles.
“Come kiss me good-bye,” she says
blinking blurrily.
Compliant,
he leans and offers
a perfunctory pucker
upon her sour morning lips.
“I’ll call you tomorrow
to tell you whether I’m coming home,”
he says.
“Call me today
to tell me you’ve arrived.”
“I can do that,” he agrees
moving down the hallway.
Eyes clamped closed again,
she hears the firm crunch of
doors and humming rumble of the engine.
As the car leaves,
she leans into her pillow,
wondering at the words,
he didn’t say.
Shawn L. Bird 