I think I could happily play with this one much longer, to create levels I haven’t yet, to figure out who these two are. Maybe at another time.
Thank you, Amaya, for this prompt on dVerse. If anyone would like to join in, click on the link.
The Sound of Goodbye
Your breath rose silvery
a smoky wisp curling
toward the myriad of stars
twinkling like Christmas lights
on this late December night.
Snow fell earlier.
I almost heard it settle
in our stillness.
Heavy, weighted, fatigued.
Downcast, withdrawn, barren.
Your few words resounded
in the hush
I awaited contradiction:
A comforting chuckle.
A sly smile.
Silence ensued,
followed by the crunching
of your footfalls
purposeful
as you strode away
like a bad dream
I’d yet to know
but would
often
now
you’ve gone.
End
Sascha Darlington
This Christmas departure is so moving, Sascha! The opening lines are atmospheric and beautiful, and your poem has given me chills. I love the lines:
‘Snow fell earlier.
I almost heard it settle
in our stillness.’
Thank you so much, Kim! 🙂
I like the thought of being so still one can hear the silent snow fall.
Thank you, Frank! 🙂
“like a bad dream
I’d yet to know
but would
often
now
you’ve gone”
That closing is so telling.
Thank you so much! 😊
I love how you captured not only the goodbye in itself but the buildup where I can feel the dread of it coming as well as well as the faint hope that it wouldn’t.. snow sounds are always close to me (as well as the scent)
I suspect you probably know the sounds of snow much, much better than I do! Thank you, Bjorn! 🙂
You certainly got your contradiction. You just didn’t expect what cane next to be contradict your heart so. This was moving and brings me back to my first relationship and breakup, which started around Christmas and ended around the same season, a year later. It is a bad dream, and one I never really got over. But they say you always have a special place for that first love. Well done, Sascha, you know how to set a mood.
Sorry for the typos, and for reading this so late.
Thank you so much, Amaya. I appreciate your reading it at all, late or otherwise and commenting! 🙂