Goodbyes

How to say goodbye

to a place

who will no more notice you are

absent

than it took notice of your arrival?

How to leave one’s imprint

in between your stones

and

shady spaces,

or in the current of that great river

I grew to love?

Of course,

we hope to live on:

in the minds,

hearts,

of those we knew,

in the pennies thrown wishfully

into Bismarck’s fountains,

and in the tattered cardboard box

of possessions sitting in a cool dark cellar

in a house atop a hill facing North,

patiently awaiting my return?