Leaving (Saying Goodbye)

Linda Dewey’s painting “Saying Goodbye” is a collaboration with Anne-Marie Oomen’s poem, “Leaving (Saying Goodbye)”

You, lake, live inside my newest word,

a wide one, horizon—just say

horizon slowly—can you feel how wide?

Then say something crisp as dawn,

like white-capped light, those

rough lines drawn in froth, lines

for water music that never ceases, 

that rises and calls, how does

a lake’s voice sing so long,

never letting our thoughts go free,

present always from roar to whisper,

to the shush at the end

that never ends—constant yes, 

how does that come to be? 

And also distance, that going on 

from you who have asked nothing 

from me, and still, I am full of longing.

It is small, I know, this human

sadness called leaving, small as a sock

lost in the surf, heel worn through,

caked with sand. No one wants it,

this wet nothing, but still, immense, 

that cleaving. Pick it up, pocket it,

the sock, this aching loneliness, 

this childhood I am leaving.