and the parting is sweet

The day is fast approaching, at last, and you can turn back no longer indeed.

Such an immense relief, as though you have just been released from jail.

A life sentence.

Yet such an immense pain too, when the first goodbyes & farewell parties begin and you find no appropriate words to say to the few good people you have made friends with over the years.

Small islands of hope and affection in this most inhospitable, hopeless of places.

Whether our paths will ever cross again I do not know, but I will cherish forever those great moments we spent together.

They alone compensate for all the disappointments, betrayals, hardships endured here.

*       *       *

for my dear Shinobazu study group friends

In my dreams I am always saying goodbye and riding away,
Whither and why I know not nor do I care.
And the parting is sweet and the parting over is sweeter,
And sweetest of all is the night and the rushing air.


In my dreams they are always waving their hands and saying goodbye,
And they give me the stirrup cup and I smile as I drink,
I am glad the journey is set, I am glad I am going,
I am glad, I am glad, that my friends don't know what I think.


 -- Stevie Smith, Tender Only to One in Collected Poems (New York: New Directions, 1983), p. 129.

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