I hate goodbyes. I cried at an airport
In Dallas, Texas, and felt predictably depressed with the last page
Of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Now at the edge
Of another goodbye, I am vexed by joy.
It makes no sense,
Here, at the end of the day, to laugh.
Perhaps you see something beyond the paling light
That causes you to rush from rose to rose,
Hastened not by early grief or fear of passing time,
But by the presence of fullness, by pure delight.
You run to kiss the roses. I wonder whether you know something
I do not, here in a garden of dying flowers, at dusk.
Already the sun is rushing to meet the earth,
To startle sleeping skeptics with its return.

7.20.23