The Cost of Goodbye

This is the day for goodbye
And we shall drain from it
All goodness
All dewy sentiment
All rosy-cheeked health
Leaving it bloodless
And pale
Upon this altar of farewell.

Let us part
With full face
The whole of sorrow
Expressed without blushing sentiment.

Spare neither our hearts
Nor spirits.
Let our pain
Be apparent
Wide-eyed
And thunderstruck.

Let us not be dignified in parting.
We must not conceal our wounds
Or bandage our hearts.
Let pain flow in wide, surging rivers
Overwhelming their banks
Sweeping before it all comfort.

Let the levee break
And the waters of grief
Swell the good land.

Let cyclones take the farms
Despoiling tender fields
Full of golden grain.

Let mighty waves break upon the sandy reaches
Rendering paradise fearsome
And tropic isles a reproach.

Let the earth break asunder
And hurl its treasures into the void
All the art and industry of the ages.

Then goodbye will be the devastation it is.